Heaven was needing a hero
by Jeannie-Mckay
Summary: When a member of the team is attacked and gravely injured the rest of the group must rally around to find the attacker, whilst trying to solve a murder. How will they react now that one of their own is in hospital? Set around S4 with S2 spoilers
1. Chapter 1

Title: Heaven was needing a hero

Author: Jeannie

Rating: T for language and themes in later chapters and because I like that rating :P

Summary: When a member of the team is attacked and gravely injured the rest of the group must rally around to find the attacker, whilst trying to solve a murder. How will they react now that one of their own is in hospital?

Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with the CSI franchise, no matter how much I wish I did. And this is not made for profit but rather for enjoyment.

Author's Note: This is my first CSI:NY fanfic, so I hope it's okay. I'd like to thank LollyLovesAngua for being my beta for the first two chapters, which are currently written. She's been great and has improved my story a lot. Hopefully you'll enjoy it, and please let me know what you think, I love getting reviews hint :D Anyway enjoy, and I'll try to keep posting regular but no promises what with school work piling up.

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Yet another call to action could be heard across the station as a dead body was located, Detective Flack pushed himself away from his desk and the already late paperwork before moving towards the door. Anything to get him away from his desk was good by him, so he might as well go and check out this latest vic. Blue eyes glanced at the watch on his wrist, 5am, now that was too early to be starting work! He hadn't managed to get home yet, but he was still on a buzz from finding the culprit of the last murder he'd investigated. Nothing gave you more satisfaction then finally getting the right guy after all those weeks of trying and sifting through evidence. Granted he hadn't done much sifting, he left that up to the CSIs after all he was more the 'muscle' when it came to arrests.

He hurried to the nearest police car opened the door and jumped in, the officer driving began to move the car off before Flack had even managed to get the door of the car closed. Honestly, talk about over excited! He slammed the door just before they emerged onto the busy Manhattan roads, and managed to buckle up, just in case this guy decided to do any strange and wonderful stunts whilst weaving in and out of the early morning traffic.

Flack often found it amusing when non-residents of New York were surprised at the fact that there was nearly always traffic on the roads, no matter what the time. You could walk down the street at 2 in the morning and you'd be greeted by the familiar sounds of beeping horns, and the sight of hundreds of yellow taxis as they whisked around the city looking for their next people to transport home.

The officer was a fairly decent driver and he didn't let his obvious enthusiasm for being called out get in the way of safe driving. After about five minutes of screaming sirens they arrived at the scene, Don hurried out of the car giving a small word of thanks before he walked towards the crime scene. It was hidden down a normally dark alley, which was now filled with light from the police officers torches as they tried to pick their way through the scene without disturbing any potential evidence. The few officers who were already there were just starting to put police tape around the scene, and thankfully due to the time there wasn't a huge crowd gathering to stare at the body. Sometimes Flack thought that people were drawn towards the crime scenes, but he had no idea why except maybe the human race was an extremely malicious lot and liked nothing better then gawping at corpses on the street.

"What've we got?" He asked one of the officers nearest him as he reached the body, glancing down and feeling the familiar sensation of nausea assault him. He'd never get used to seeing corpses especially ones so young, he could already guess the age of this one the kid looked in his early twenties. Inwardly the detective sighed, that was too young to die, he had so much to live for and he ended up being cut down by some psycho on the war path.

"Caucasian male, aged unknown but I'm guessing he's about 20-21, he was found by that young lady on her way home," The officer pointed beyond the police tape where a young brunette was stood tears falling from her eyes. A female police officer was stood with her, getting more information and trying to calm her down until the ambulance arrived.

"Robbery?" He glanced around the street; there were a few indicators that there had been a struggle so it could be possible that this had been a robbery gone wrong. Maybe he put up too good a fight and his attacker had grabbed something and killed him.

"I don't think so; he's still got his wallet in his pocket."

"Any ID?"

"Yeah, he's got a few cards and they've all got the name 'Joshua Hopkinson'." An evidence bag was withdrawn out of thin air it seemed, the officer opened it and withdrew the wallet. His gloved hands opened it up and Flack could see several pictures stuffed together, he could recognise their vic almost immediately and no doubt the other people were either his friends or relatives. The male before him withdrew several cards and showed them to him, they all had the same name which was helpful but now they needed to get in touch with the family.

"Any clues as to next of kin?" The cards were placed back in the wallet, which was then dropped back in the evidence bag ready for the CSIs to collect.

"Not yet."

"Okay, thanks." The officer nodded at him before he moved off towards the young woman who was still crying, in the distance Flack could hear more sirens which would hopefully prove to be the ambulance arriving to look after the female. Blue eyes watched the civilian and the female officer, waiting to see what the girl knew. He didn't want to go barging in there and ask her himself, after all if the female officer had built up a bond with the girl then it was unlikely he'd help by going in and acting like his usual sarcastic self. Finally the female officer turned and began to walk towards him, once she reached him he raised his eyebrows slightly inviting her to tell him exactly what the female had seen.

"She says she didn't see anything, she was walking home from a club and she decided to take this shortcut home. She was passing through here about half an hour ago and she says that she tripped over the body, she didn't know what it was at first but when she stood up she saw what it was and rang the police."

"Which club?" Flack asked, reaching into his pocket for a small notebook. He wanted to make sure that he checked out this club, just in case their vic had gone there earlier. He knew it was a long shot, but he needed something to go on.

"Um, Club 215. It's on West 28th Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues." The detective had to stop himself from laughing; did she really think that he hadn't been to pretty much every club in this city? Half of the barmen knew him on first name terms, although most of the time that was because he was investigating some incident but he did have a decent social life.

"Okay, so she's sure she didn't see or hear anything?"

"She says she didn't see or hear a thing."

"What's her name?"

"Kiera Darton"

"Thanks." He scribbled down the information in his pretty much illegible scrawl as the officer moved off, now at least they had something to go on. They'd have to pull the girl back in to make a statement, but for now she needed to get checked out and calmed down by an ambulance crew. He, for one, wasn't going to deal with a hysterical twenty-something female!

Don turned as he heard the sound of a car pull up not far behind him, and he was greeted by the sight of Stella Bonasera and Sheldon Hawkes hurrying out of their vehicle and towards the scene. He walked towards the Crime Scene tape, lifting it up so that they could both pass beneath it.

"What have we got Flack?" Stella asked the minute she had got past the tape, and the detective couldn't help a small smile cross his face. That was Stella all over eager to get on with the job, and she tended to ask exactly the same questions he did when he first arrived…now was that a good thing?

"Young Caucasian male, approximately 21 years old. He was found by that young lady over there about half an hour ago, she says she didn't hear or see a thing."

"We got an ID?" Hawkes asked as the three of them moved closer to the body,

"Yeah, the cards in the wallet are registered to a 'Joshua Hopkinson'." Don held out the evidence bag containing the wallet and let Hawkes take it from him. Finally they reached the body and the two CSIs began to process the scene, Flack watched in silent amusement as they scurried around picking up anything that could possible be evidence. He'd never be able to cope with their job, not only did they spend way too much time in those labs of theirs but they also had to spend way too much time around the dead. He preferred spending his time with the living, and he liked the living to be of the female variety.

_"Calling all available officers, we several reports of a disturbance at 217 and Broadway, Apartment 69 gunshots heard, possible officer involved. I repeat reports of a disturbance at 217 and Broadway, Apartment 69 possible officer involved."_ Don sighed slightly as the radio blared into life, he'd love for just one day to go smoothly and quietly…but then again he'd got into the wrong career path if he wanted nice and peaceful days, although granted one murder couldn't really be seen as peaceful.

At the mention of gunshots he picked up his radio wanting to swiftly call in and let them know that he'd take a few officers to look around, but he was suddenly stopped by Stella's anxious face looking up at him. He sent her a curious look his hand inches from his radio,

"That's Mac's place." She said simply, but at those three words Flack felt a knot begin to develop in his stomach. He knew that if there'd been trouble at Mac's place then the guy was more than capable of defending himself, after all he was an expert with pretty much every weapon known to man but they needed to get there quickly.

"I'll check it out." He said, turning away from the crime scene and heading back towards the police car he'd arrived in.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The second Stella had heard the apartment number over the radio she'd felt her blood freeze in her veins. When she'd finally become friends with Mac they'd spent time at one another's apartments trying to suss one another out, so they both knew the others address off by heart. He was the only guy she'd given her address to, because she knew she could trust him and if anything happened he'd be there like a shot.

She watched as Flack walked away, talking into his radio as he went letting them know he was on the case. She desperately wanted to go with him, just to make sure that Mac was all right but she was needed here and she couldn't work when her mind was off worrying about something else. With a deep breath she struggled to put her fears aside, and instead began to examine the body before her. Flack was right he could only be in his early twenties, and from the smell on his clothes he'd been in a bar or club at some time that night.

As Hawkes pulled out the camera to begin processing the scene Stella moved around the scene, checking for signs of a struggle and to see if anyone had moved something between the time of the murder and the current point in time. There had evidently been a struggle; some trashcans had been knocked over their contents spilling into the alley. Nothing seemed to be missing from the surrounding area, but there had definitely been a fight so no doubt the vic would have some DNA from the killer either on his clothing or somewhere on his body.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see the flashes of light coming from Sheldon's camera as he took pictures of the vic and the surrounding area. They always needed to be thorough in their investigation, because you never knew what tiny thing could potentially be the biggest breakthrough in a case.

After a few minutes the necessary photos had been taken and they were ready to begin their examination. Hawkes already had the wallet so it didn't look like robbery had been the motive, so they just had to figure out what it could be. First Stella checked in his pockets, trying to find something like a cell phone that they could use to identify this man's next of kin. She found a deep pocket on the male's right trouser leg and managed to pull out the phone that was concealed within, once this was found she placed it straight in an evidence bag. They could get any numbers off the cell at the lab later.

"Looks like he was stabbed several times," Sheldon said, pointing to the three large holes on the male's light blue shirt through which blood was still seeping. "And we've got defensive wounds." He pulled up the body's arm to reveal a few long scratches; it seemed that he'd definitely been trying to defend himself from the attacker.

"There's some bruising to the knuckles, so this guy laid a few punches on our perp." Stella said, staring at the knuckles on both of the vic's hands. If he'd managed to cause enough damage to his attacker then that could make their job a bit easier, it was much better trying to spot a perp with a broken jaw then someone with a tiny scratch on their nose.

"This looks like it was definitely where our murder took place," She glanced around the alley once more, the killer didn't seem to have left anything behind on the body so they'd have to do a sweep of the place to check for blood or prints. As she looked back at the body something caught her eye, she picked up the male's hand once more holding her torch closer to the fingernails. "That looks like blood and possibly some skin under the fingernails." She said, scraping at the substance before bagging it up ready to be processed back at the lab. Hopefully they could use this to try and identify the attacker.

The processing continued for a while longer before the body was able to be transferred to the mortuary, they had retrieved little from the surrounding area, no prints but they had recovered some other blood. They bagged up all the evidence and readied themselves to return to the lab; it was only then that Stella allowed her mind to wander back to Mac.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank-you all so much for your reviews on the first chapter, I'm really glad you guys are enjoying it so far. Sorry for this kind of short chapter, but the next one will be longer.

I just want to thank my beta again because she rocks, and she's really helped me improve this story! Anyway please do continue to review, and let me know what you think.

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Flack's mind was racing, he just wanted to get to Mac's and make sure he was all right! He had to be all right, come on this was Mac Taylor, the guy who could survive explosions and who knows what else.

The car wove in between the traffic, hurrying towards the address and Don couldn't help but wish the driver would push the gas a bit harder. He glanced out of the window occasionally, watching the buildings whiz past trying to keep his mind on the job he couldn't let his friendship with Mac get in the way here, if he went in there worrying then there was a chance that he'd end up ruining any chance of catching whoever was in there with him.

Finally the driver turned a corner and brought the car to a halt, Don grabbed his radio as he opened the door and stepped out onto the street.

"Okay let's move in." He'd grabbed a few of the officers from the first crime scene and back up were already here, their guns held at the ready. Slowly they moved into the apartment building and towards the elevator, Flack pulled out his own 9mm as they reached the lobby making sure that it was properly loaded and ready for action.

After a few seconds the elevator pinged into existence and he and several of the other officers piled in, half of the back up took the stairs and the rest were already covering the exits. They couldn't leave anything to chance. The doors closed ever so slowly as though they were taunting them, trying to keep them from their overall objective.

Blue eyes watched the numbers slowly light up, willing them to go faster but not even his charms could make an elevator speed up its pace. The other officers were all on edge, he could practically feel their nervous tension radiating off them as they waited to reach the right floor. Finally they were only one floor away and Flack brought up his gun readying himself for whatever they might encounter when those doors opened. In his mind he was picturing a huge army trying to take down Mac's door, because in his imagination that was the only thing that could take the Head of the CSIs down!

A soft 'ding' signalled the elevators arrival and slowly the doors opened revealing empty hallway. Don moved out into the long corridor, glancing around for any signs that intruders were present but there didn't seem to be anything amiss out here. Swiftly the team moved towards number 69 and behind him he could hear the back up arriving from the stairs.

"NYPD" Flack said as they reached the right door, he knocked once before placing his ear against the cold wood. He couldn't hear anything from the room beyond, so he signalled for the other's to move back. With one swift kick he managed to knock the door open, and as one the team moved inside the apartment.

The minute he stepped through the door Flack knew something was wrong, pieces of furniture were overturned, there was blood on the walls…a hell of a lot of blood everywhere.

"NYPD!" He shouted once more, his gun held at the ready as he made his way into the living room. His gaze was captured by the few photographs on the mantelpiece; he couldn't help but stare at these little glimpses of Mac's past, of happier times. But then something caught his eye and he could have sworn that his heart stopped.

"MAC!" He yelled as he ran towards the still form of his friend, as he reached him he rolled him over carefully and had to stifle a moan as he saw the bloody mess before him. "Somebody call EMS!" He called over his shoulder, as he stuffed his gun back in its holster and began to try to stem the flow of blood from the male's abdomen. An already bloody hand made its way to Mac's neck desperately feeling for a pulse, relief spread through him at the weak beat he felt beneath his fingertips.

"Oh my God," The words came out as no more than a whisper as he took in the sight, Mac was bleeding from a bullet hole on his left side and a stab wound in the centre of his stomach…this had been one hell of a frenzied attack. "Mac? Mac can you hear me?" He slapped his friend's face lightly, hoping for some kind of reaction but receiving none.

Quickly he removed his jacket and placed it over the wounds, hoping that pressing the fabric firmly against the injuries might slow the bleeding. He couldn't quite believe this was happening, he'd heard accounts of what had happened when that building had exploded and he and Mac had been stuck in it…he'd found out that he'd been close to death and Mac had saved him, now he had a duty to save Mac. He wasn't about to let him die, not yet!

"Mac, come on buddy I need you to wake up!" Silence and stillness greeted his words, and Flack couldn't help but notice the pallor of his skin.

"The rest of the place is clear." One of the officers returned, but Flack didn't have time to think about procedures at the minute.

"Where's that goddamn ambulance?!" He shouted at him, his eyes never leaving Mac's almost white face. All he wanted was a flicker of an eyelid or some other tiny movement to let him know that his friend was still with him.

"It's on its way, sir." The blood was soaking through the fabric of his jacket, before finding its way to the already soaked carpet. On the male's face Don could already see deep bruising appearing, and the indentation of a gun on the side of Mac's head. Beneath the shock and the fear he could feel anger rising, he'd find whoever did this and with God as his witness he'd make them pay!

"Come on Mac, stay with me, okay? You are not gunna die on me, you hear me!" He didn't care that his voice was getting louder; all he wanted was some kind of sign that the prone figure below him had heard him.


	3. Chapter 3

Wow, I just want to say once more that you guys are amazing thank-you so much for all your kind reviews and I'm really glad that you all seem to be enjoying it so far. So here's the latest chapter, yay :D

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The scream of sirens was drawing nearer, Flack could already see the occasional flash of red and blue through the open window opposite him. His blood-stained hands were still pressing down on his jacket, as he tried to stem the blood flowing from the wounds covering Mac's body. They'd gone through something like this with Stella a few years ago, he couldn't deal with this again! When he'd joined the Force he'd realised the risks, hell his father had told him enough stories about the job for him to know that you lost people. He'd lost a few men and women during his time on the job but Mac was the constant…he was always there, unreadable, not judging, just there to help. And now he was lying in a lifeless heap, and Flack could feel his life slipping past his blood soaked jacket and hands.

Blue eyes scanned the pale face below him all his thoughts were going round and round in his head, his desperation to save his friend the only thing that was keeping him professional. Finally, after what seemed like hours but it could only have been a few minutes, paramedics were approaching him and one gently prised him off Mac's body. The two men quickly checked his vitals, muttering under their breath as they tried to stop the constant stream of blood from his friends' abdomen.

"What's his name?" One of them asked gruffly, tapping the detective's face to try and revive him. Don wanted to scream at him to quit it, but that wouldn't exactly be professional, and after all it might work…

"Mac. Mac Taylor."

"Mac? Mac, can you hear me?" As one began to talk to Mac, a constant stream of useless questions to try and get some kind of attention from the prone figure, the other paramedic began to place bandages over his wounds lifting the detective's shirt as he did so. As the material was slowly pulled away Don felt nausea begin to build, his friend's chest was coated in blood from God knows how many wounds and bruises were beginning to form, a stark contrast from the pale skin.

Suddenly a third person appeared carrying a stretcher, it didn't take long for them to place Mac on the board and connect him to different wires and tubes.

"Let's get him back." One said, before they began to manoeuvre the stretcher out of the room and down to the ambulance. Flack watched his friend disappear, and within seconds made the decision to go with him. He wouldn't leave him alone!

"Close off the scene," He called to one of his officers as he jogged to the door, "Get in touch with the CSIs, get 'em round here." With that said he ran down the corridor and managed to catch the group as they entered the lift. Together they hurried to the ambulance and he watched as they lifted Mac up into the vehicle, and placed yet more wires onto his body. He jumped up into the ambulance as a slow beeping began signalling that a heart monitor had been attached, Flack couldn't help the feeling of relief that washed over him at the reassuring noise. Mac was still there, he was still fighting for his life. An oxygen mask was placed over his face, obscuring Don's view of his friend's features.

The engine blared into life, and Don took a seat out of the way of the medic as the doors closed. Finally they began their journey to the hospital, the paramedic marvelling at Mac's continuing heartbeat. Flack didn't like the fact that even this guy didn't rate the detective's chances highly…that was never a good sign.

After a quick, rushed ride through the city they arrived at the hospital and the large doors flew open revealing a few nurses outside. They helped to lower the stretcher to the ground, before running into the hospital leaving him to jump out of the vehicle and hurry after them. He hated hospitals, he could still remember waking up in one after that bomb had gone off two years ago…the fear that had passed through him on seeing the i/v in his arm and smelling that horrible smell that could only be found in hospitals.

He rushed through the automatic doors and ran up to the group crowding around the stretcher as they hurried down the corridor, as he reached them he managed to catch a glimpse of Mac's face. The oxygen mask was still in place so he couldn't see Mac too well, but he was still breathing that was the main thing.

"I'm sorry, you can't go any further." One of the nurses broke off from the group and placed a hand on his chest stopping him in his tracks. He looked down at her, she was rather attractive and under normal circumstances he wouldn't have minded her placing a hand on him but right now he wanted to be with Mac he didn't give a damn what some jumped up nurse had to say.

"But I've got to, he's my friend." His words fell on deaf ears as she refused to move, and he watched as the stretcher disappeared through another set of double doors and out of sight. Once it was gone he felt his shoulders slump and he gave up any idea of struggling against the woman before him. She seemed to sense his defeat and smiled sympathetically up at him, before showing him to the waiting area.

"We'll call you when we have any information, Mr…?"

"Flack. Don Flack." She smiled once more, before she left him with the few other people milling around waiting for news on their loved ones. Blue eyes looked around him, before settling on the signs for the washrooms. Blood was still on his hands, and no doubt the funny looks he was getting from the other occupants of the room were because his clothes and face were covered with dark red stains. Slowly, wearily he walked into the male washrooms and began to wash away the blood…Mac's blood.

It took him about ten minutes to get rid of all the blood from his face and hands, once this was done he exited the toilets and went back into the waiting room. Everywhere he looked doctors and nurses were hurrying around, going about their business, saving lives.

He needed to get in touch with Stella and the team, they needed to know. Flack jogged out of the hospital, pulling his cell out of his trouser pocket as he went. Fresh air hit him like a fist, the spring plants all around him seemed to be mocking him with their cheerfulness. Right now he wanted everything to wither away, he wanted it to rain! His friend was lying in the hospital dying and nothing in the world was changing.

Shaky fingers fumbled with the numbers as he dialled the number he knew so well, as he placed the cell against his ear he suddenly began to wonder what the hell he'd say to her.

_"Bonesera."_

"Stella. You know that call I got, for Mac's flat?"

_"Yeah…oh God, Don what's wrong? Did something happen? Is Mac hurt?"_ What to say, she knew something was up just from the tone of his voice.

"Mac was attacked, Stella, I'm at the hospital but I wasn't allowed to go with him. I'm stuck in the waiting room. He's in bad shape Stell." He could practically hear the tears begin to fall down her cheeks, and he had to fight doubly hard not to break down there and then.

_"I'll be right there, Don."_

"Should I let the others know? Or do you wanna do that?" He was so glad that a part of his mind could remain slightly professional, they needed to let the others know soon as they'd want to be here.

_"Um…oh God…I don't know."_ She was starting to break apart, he needed to keep her together.

"It's okay Stell, I'll get hold of them. You just focus on getting here in one piece." The last thing he wanted was to see her being brought here on a stretcher in a worse condition then Mac.

_"Yeah Don. I'll be there soon."_ It took a lot to make Stella Bonesera break down, and Flack was terrified that this would be too much for them all. Mac was just someone who couldn't get hurt, hell he'd survived too many things to be taken down by…whoever had done this.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Stella could feel tears burning in her eyes, but she couldn't let them fall. She had just been about to enter the lab when Don had called, about to go over the evidence from the killing of Joshua Hopkins. The minute she'd ended the call she'd practically run down the corridor into the lifts and pressed the button for the ground floor, she had needed to get to the car park quickly. If she'd known where Danny, Lindsey or Hawkes were she would have tried to find them, but right now all she could think about was Mac and what had happened to him.

Now she was sat in her car stuck in infernal traffic, unable to get to her friend's side because of some idiot who thought that driving at 10mph was a good idea! She slammed her hand on the horn, trying to get the cars in front of her to move it. She could put the siren on, that'd make them move but that was highly unprofessional…and she needed some time to pull herself together.

What could have happened? All Flack had said was that he was in a bad way…how bad? Was he going to die? Had he been stabbed? Shot? Beaten? All these thoughts were running through her brain and she couldn't make them stop conjuring horrific images of Mac lying on the floor bleeding heavily and dying slowly.

The traffic began moving once more and she slowly put her foot on the gas, allowing her car to move forwards. Finally they began to pick up speed and soon she was only a few minutes away from the hospital, soon she would be able to be with Don and be closer to Mac. Nothing could stop her getting to her friends, now she understood part of what Mac must have felt when he'd found her unconscious in her flat.

The road before her was beginning to blur as fresh tears threatened to fall, she tried to rein them in but one by one they began to slip down her cheeks. He couldn't die! He wasn't allowed to! He was Mac Taylor.


	4. Chapter 4

Wow thanks again for all your lovely reviews, I'm so glad that you're enjoying it so far. I want to take this oppurtunity to thank my wonderful beta, LollyLovesAngua, because she's taken so much time to read through each of these chapters and give my feedback on them. This story wouldn't be half as good without her help, and her constant nagging for the next chapter :P

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Danny Messer ran a hand through his hair; he was running the skin sample Stella and Hawkes had brought back from the murder scene but it didn't match any DNA samples in the database. This made life a hell of a lot harder! Sid was carrying out an autopsy although it was pretty obvious what had killed the guy, the several stab wounds to the chest, but then again the man had often managed to surprise them with his findings.

Slowly he moved away from the computer screen before him, they'd run a few fingerprints that had been lifted from the scene but no hits in AFIS so it looked like their perp hadn't had any brushes with the law. All around him the screens were flashing with those terrible red words 'No Match Found', and he suddenly wanted to get out of the lab. He wanted to go have a coffee, talk with his friends and just have a few seconds where he wasn't worrying about this new case.

Almost as if they had a will of their own his feet began carrying him out of the lab and towards the small kitchen area, soon he was stood before the wooden cupboards. He wasn't going to complain, after all his stomach was beginning to rumble and object to the fact that he'd had nothing to eat since last night and it was breakfast time! He opened one of the top cupboards and rummaged around looking for Lindsay's 'secret' stash of chocolate biscuits, which she always kept on the top shelf hoping that the height would put the others off. Of course this height issue meant that every time she wanted one of _her_ biscuits, she had to quickly stand on one of the work surfaces in order to actually reach her hiding place. Once he found them he dragged the packet off of the shelf and pulled out three wonderful chocolate biscuits, he put the packet away and closed the cupboard door before moving to grab a chair. The kitchen was empty, everyone was either at home or working, so he managed to sit in one of the nicer seats and began to munch on his snacks.

"Danny?" He jumped slightly as a voice sounded behind him, and he turned to see Lindsay stood in the doorway watching him with a curious expression. He tried to smile innocently at her, but the fact that he had half a biscuit in his mouth and two more in his hand kind of destroyed the effect. Her eyes glanced to the snacks before she sighed and rolled her eyes, he guessed that she'd known all along about him stealing her biscuits but she didn't seem to mind too much.

"Hey, Montana. What's up?" He asked, once he'd managed to swallow the food in his mouth, watching her carefully as she moved towards him.

"Nothing, I've been going some of the trace found at the scene but so far no luck. What about you?" She took the seat opposite him, glancing around the room as she sat almost as if she was marvelling at the empty space.

"Nope, nothing at all. We're gunna have to work hard at this one, Montana." He popped the entire second biscuit into his mouth, taking great delight in her slightly disgusted expression as he ate the chocolaty goodness in front of her. If she couldn't deal with his childish behaviour then she shouldn't be with him, but he knew that she loved it really all this was just an act, she'd never really change him…or would she?

"Surely there's got to be some match to the DNA in CODIS, there's got to be something that could identify our perp!"

"Whoa Lindsay, we've only been on this for a short time. We'll get something on them soon. We've just gotta wait for the autopsy report from Sid, and then we can try and figure out more of this." He broke the final biscuit in half and offered her one of the halves; she took it smiling at him letting her fingers brush across his as she took the offered food.

"That reminds me, where's Stella?" He asked, he had no idea where the female had disappeared to after she'd given in the samples. She'd said that she would be back soon to check on the progress and help out, but she'd never turned up again. Sure she hadn't been missing for that long, but it would be nice to know.

"I dunno, I saw her about half an hour ago but I haven't seen her since." A thoughtful expression crossed Danny's face as he wondered about Stella, but before he could say anymore his cell began to vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out, glanced at the name of the caller before answering.

"Messer. What's up Flack?"

"_Danny? Mac's been attacked, he's in Bellevue hospital. Stella's on her way here now…"_

"What the hell? Is he okay? What happened?"

"_I dunno how he is, I haven't been allowed to see him yet. All I know is that he was attacked, my guys should have gotten onto your CSIs so they should be able to shed some light on it."_

"Lindsay and I'll be right there Flack."

"_Okay, I've got to get in touch with Hawkes."_

"Okay, bye." He ended the call quickly, grabbed Lindsay by the hand and practically dragged her out of her chair, out of the kitchen and towards the lifts.

"What the hell? Danny what's wrong?" She asked as finally she managed to pull her arm free from his grip, her eyes were fearful, wondering what on earth could be making him act like this.

"Mac's been attacked." He couldn't bring himself to look at her as he spoke, he didn't want to see his confusion and pain reflected in her eyes. They all knew that when you took a job in the NYPD, heck with any police department, there was a chance that one day you may not be going home. Aiden was proof of that. But sometimes it was easy to forget the danger, and it was especially easy to forget the fact that even an ex-marine could get injured.

"What? No…he can't be…" Finally the lift doors opened and the two of them hurried inside, but he still refused to look at her. All that mattered now was getting to the hospital, making sure Mac was all right and then they could worry about falling apart…or anything else.

XXXXXXXXX

Flack sat in one of the horribly uncomfortable hospital chairs with his head leant against the wall; his blue eyes were closed as he silently wished for sleep to overpower him. With sleep came the chance to forget, and maybe this would all turn out to be a nightmare. He could try and believe that, he could attempt to forget the coppery scent of the blood seeping through his jacket and onto his hands, he could try to push away the sight of one of his greatest friends lying on the floor of his own apartment his skin pale and death hovering nearby.

All around him he could hear the sounds of nurses and doctors moving between their patients, and he could feel the fear from the other people in the waiting room with him. No one was talking; everyone too scared for their family members, friends etc. He'd come back in here once he'd made the calls to Danny and Hawkes; he'd needed to sit down before he fell down. He was meant to be the 'muscle' of the operation, but now he felt powerless unable to do anything to save his friend's life.

"Don?" His eyes snapped open and he turned his head to see Stella enter the room, her eyes red and puffy from crying. Slowly he stood, offering her a small smile before walking towards her.

"Hey, Stella." She looked up at him trying to return the smile but failing as another tear fell down her cheek. As he reached her he pulled her into an embrace, wanting to take away some of the pain she was feeling. At times like this they needed human contact, somebody to hold, someone to talk to.

"How's he doing?" She asked, sniffing slightly as she fought yet more tears. What could he say? One nurse had visited him since he'd finished his phone calls and all she'd been able to tell him was that Mac needed surgery.

"I dunno, all I've been told is that he's gone into surgery." Slowly they broke apart, and he found himself missing the contact. Stella walked around him and sat down in one of the chairs, he didn't copy her instead he remained standing his hands landing on his hips as he stared around the room. He'd never taken a good look at the people in here, but now he saw that they looked about as bad as he felt. All were probably anxiously awaiting news of loved ones…and half of them would receive the worst possible information. He could only hope and pray that Mac wouldn't be one of those to end up in the morgue.

As he looked back at Stella she seemed to have regained her composure, and was staring straight ahead of her probably not allowing herself to think about the situation at hand. To think was to feel, and none of them wanted to do that right now.

"Did they say how long the surgery would take?"

"Nope."

"Did they say anything about it at all?" Flack felt the ghost of a chuckle appear in his throat, but he couldn't let it escape for some reason.

"Nope." He'd been through this rigmarole many times before, the waiting game, but it never got any easier. You had to put all your faith and trust into people you'd never met before, who gave you little or no information but were the only ones who could help.

"God! This is why I hate hospitals." He always found it strange when she could echo almost exactly what he was thinking, but he chose not to comment on it this time after all they'd just get into a debate about the fact that they'd worked together for too long and that particular conversation had been done before.

"I know." Five minutes passed in silence as Flack began to pace the room, and Stella continued to stare at the opposite wall. Just as he was about to sit down a noise by the door made him turn, he half expected to see a nurse appear with a grave expression on her face but instead Danny and Lindsay rounded the corner with Hawkes hot on their heels. There was no way they would have been able to get here that quickly without breaking the speed limit…so that obviously meant that Danny had been driving. The three of them looked terrified, the lack of information really wearing them down.

"Don what's happened?" Lindsay asked the minute she spotted him. The three CSIs walked towards him and Stella glancing between the two for some sign as to their leaders condition.

"When we got to his apartment we found Mac on the ground…it looked like he'd been shot and stabbed…he didn't look good." A small voice in his head sounded, asking him if it was possible for anyone to look good after having a blade and bullet inserted into their body. "Last thing I've heard is that he's in surgery, they've told us nada, zip, nothing." Once he'd finished he flopped down into a chair, letting his exhaustion carry him down for a few seconds. He could hear the other three copying him and taking chairs, muttering to one another about hospitals and how you never got enough information to keep you going.

"When did he go into surgery?" Hawkes asked, leaning forwards to look at Flack across his two colleagues. Don squinted slightly as he tried to remember the exact time when the nurse had talked to him, he was sure that he'd glanced at his watch…yes he had, because he wanted to guess how long before Stella joined him.

"I'm not sure, I think it was something like quarter past." Don glanced at his watch as he spoke; it was quarter to now…great they had hours to go yet.

"Okay, well if we knew what was wrong then I could hazard a guess at how long it would take…I don't suppose they told you anything else?"

"Nope." He and Stella said in unison.

"Great."

"Have we got anyone to process the scene at Mac's place?" Danny asked, cutting through the original conversation as though he didn't want to think about the surgery or how long it would take. Flack glanced at Stella before answering.

"I got my guys to put in a call for some of your lot, I wasn't around to see who turned up." All four of them nodded slowly, each no doubt wishing they were the ones to do the processing.

"Stell, do you mind if I go and help out the team at Mac's place?" Danny looked at Stella his face a mask of professionalism, but Don could tell that his friend didn't want to be here. No doubt it still held memories of his brother's brutal assault.

"Of course not Danny, go ahead. We'll call you with any news." The female looked quite surprised that he had needed to ask her permission to go, but after all she was seen as Mac's second-in-command.

"I'll go too." Lindsay said, glancing at Stella for confirmation before standing and leading Danny out of the waiting room. Hawkes seemed unwilling to leave and Don was quite happy to leave it as just the three of them waiting, five seemed a bit too many but three would be enough for company. Together they sat in silence, all looking up whenever a nurse or doctor entered the room hoping that this time there would be news but none came.


	5. Chapter 5

Thanks again for the wonderful reviews on this story, I'm so glad you guys are enjoying it.

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After about ten minutes of Danny's reckless driving through the streets of Manhattan Lindsay was more than happy to be arriving at Mac's apartment building, even if the circumstances were not ideal. She still couldn't quite believe what had happened. She'd joined the team just under two years ago and since then they'd become like a second family to her, every single one of them had been so welcoming…well except Danny but she'd grown used to, even fond of, his sense of humour. As she closed the car door behind her she allowed her eyes to wander over to her colleague. He was one of those people that she could never quite suss out, he was so lovely and sweet at times and yet his rough edges would always appear and could prove to endanger his relationships. She could only pray that their relationship was tougher than that because she wasn't quite ready to give up on him yet, she loved him.

Together they walked into the lobby nodding at the two police officers who were stationed there, no doubt seeing if they could get any information on shady characters walking through here in the past few hours. As they reached the elevators one pinged into life, and they stepped to one side to allow the occupants to get out before walking into the small space. It was lucky that Danny had his kit and a spare in the car that way they'd cut out the drive back to the lab to pick up hers; it just saved a bit of time. Time that would be spent worrying about why they hadn't received any calls from Stella, Flack or Sheldon.

"Danny, are you okay?" She asked tentatively once the doors had closed and the lift began to move, she knew that all in all it was a stupid question to ask but he'd been strangely quiet and she didn't like his silences.

"Yeah. I'm fine." He said unconvincingly and under normal circumstances she would continue to ask him until she got the truth, but right now she had a feeling that if she questioned him for too long she'd have her head bitten off.

Silence filled the lift, as both were lost to their own thoughts. After what seemed like hours the doors opened and they entered the hallway, it wasn't hard to find Mac's flat seeing as the door was kicked in and there was Crime Scene Investigation tape crisscrossing the doorframe. From inside the apartment they could hear the murmuring of the team who were already there, no doubt being as meticulous as possible. Now that one of their own was injured they'd stop at nothing to find the culprit, that's what happened, one got hurt and the others would find those responsible and make them pay. It sometimes worried her how attached she'd grown to all of them, these people were more than her friends…heck more than her family, they'd gone through so much together and to hurt one was to hurt them all.

They ducked under the tape and entered the apartment, allowing themselves a few seconds to look around them at the home Mac had made. Curiosity was a necessary component of human behaviour, it was natural when entering a new place for one to want to look around but right now they had to get down to the job in hand.

"Hey Danny, Lindsay." Lindsay managed to smile at Tony Stone, one of their rather more experienced CSIs, as he walked over to them. She glanced at Danny and noticed that he was trying to imitate her smile, but it seemed more of a grimace.

"Hey Tony, what've you got so far?" Danny asked as he looked around him, it almost seemed like he was avoiding looking at the living room…although the blood spatters were everywhere.

"Well there was a vicious struggle which seemed to originate around about here, before moving into the living room. We found a gun under the sofa, probably kicked under there in the struggle, but one shot had been fired from it." He held up an evidence bag as he spoke and showed them a 9mm, "There are blood spatters consistent with knife wounds, along with spatters consistent with gunshot wounds. We've got swabs from all the blood samples, so we'll run that through CODIS and hopefully it'll turn out that Mac inflicted some damage on his attackers." Once he'd finished Lindsay nodded slowly, before moving into the living room. The second her gaze fell on the large dried pool of blood on the carpet she felt nausea assault her, and she couldn't stop her imagination conjuring up Mac's body lying on the floor his face pale, his life gone. No, she couldn't think like that! He was still alive and fighting, and until she heard otherwise she was going to cling to the belief that he was going to pull through.

She placed her pack on the floor, opened it and pulled gloves out of her pocket. She wanted to double check everything in this flat, it wasn't that she didn't trust the team here already but she needed to be sure that they'd gotten every last piece of evidence. There was no way she was going to let whoever had done this get away with it!

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The hours seemed to drag by, each second lasted an eternity until finally the tension in the hospital waiting room was practically thick enough to cut with a knife. Flack knew that that was an overly used cliché but at times like these he didn't really care about his language, or anything else for that matter, all that was important was finding out information. So far they'd had a rather sketchy talk from one of the nurses who had basically informed them that they should wait for the doctor to return from surgery. All that she'd been able to tell them was that so far Mac was still alive, but that they couldn't be sure that he was in the clear. Great.

On his right Stella sat, straight backed, in her chair her hands clasped on her lap. If you didn't know her it would be damn near impossible to tell that she was worried, but he knew better, her knuckles were practically white and her lips were drawn together. She was terrified, like the rest of them.

Hawkes, on the other hand, had found it almost impossible to sit still. He would constantly pace the room, glancing at the clock on the wall occasionally as if to will the time to go faster. When he had eventually sat down Don had to restrain a sigh of relief, because Sheldon's constant movement had set him more on edge!

"I'm gunna go get some coffee, anyone want some?" He asked finally, breaking the silence that had stretched between the three of them for so long. Blue optics flickered between his two companions before he stood, stretching his legs once he was upright.

"No thanks, Don." came Stella's reply, and Flack considered arguing with her, she needed something to drink; hell she needed some to eat as well! But then again she could just turn that back around and say exactly the same thing about him, and there was no need for a shouting match in here…it would distress people further.

"Um…yeah, sure. Thanks, Flack." At Hawkes' affirmative answer Don shot them both a small smile, about the most he could manage at this point in time, before he turned and walked out of the room. Once he was out of the waiting room he suddenly felt a bit better, the oppressive atmosphere was lifted somewhat and he could breathe a bit easier now he was out in the corridor. All around him nurses and doctors hurried to and fro, doing their rounds and trying to do their jobs. He could never have dealt with being a doctor, too much death, and too much pain to deal with everyday. At least being a cop you could distance yourself from the people you arrested, they were just yet another criminal who didn't deserve to be on the streets but being a doctor what with the Hippocratic oath you had to treat everyone in the same way, surely that had to get to them at some point? How could they walk into one room and tell that person that they wouldn't survive to see their kid's next birthday, and then go into the room next door and congratulate a new mother on her baby?

The walk to the coffee machine seemed to take forever until finally he saw the 'light at the end of the tunnel'; the wonderful appliance that dispensed that horrible coffee that you got used to when you worked in the police force. After a long days work that drink seemed like the liquor of the Gods!

He rummaged in his pockets trying to find some change; otherwise his trip to this stupid machine would have been wasted. Finally he withdrew a few quarters and began to pay for the first cup, his finger hovering over the button. Slowly he leant forwards and placed his forehead against the machine, closing his eyes and trying not to let things take control of him. The situation was finally starting to hit him; he'd been numb to it all but now he could feel his fear beginning to eat at his insides. After a few seconds of silence he pushed himself off the appliance, and pressed the button for his coffee. He just wanted to find a corner, curl up and wish for all this to go away.

Once his cup was full he gave the machine more change and got Hawkes' drink, and when that finally arrived he began to move back to the waiting room. His feet were moving ever so slowly, as if he didn't really want to enter that tense atmosphere again, but he had to remind himself that the others needed him. He was a somewhat calming influence at times…or he just added to the tension, it depended on his mood.

The doorway beckoned him onwards and soon he was once more standing in the entrance to the waiting room. Hawkes was pacing again and Stella was still sat in her chair, but this time her head was in her hands. He wanted nothing more than to hug her and make all the pain go away, but he knew that he would be little comfort at the moment. Slowly he moved towards Sheldon, holding out his cup as he went. The male took the drink gratefully, smiling at him as he moved to sit back down. It was then that Flack moved to sit next to Stella once more, and soon his arm was around her shoulders. She leant into him no longer caring about appearing strong, now she just wanted to have someone hold her and show that they felt her pain as well.

Suddenly a noise from the doorway made them all start and they turned to see a doctor in scrubs standing there, looking around the room anxiously. Finally his eyes alighted on Flack and he moved forwards, Don gently moved his arm from around Stella's shoulders and stood.

"Detective Flack?" The male asked, glancing at the other two as they stood and moved to stand on either side of Flack.

"Yeah." He would have said something more, but right then his throat felt like it was constricted, if it got any worse then he didn't think he'd be able to breathe.

"I'm afraid I have some news about your friend, Mac Taylor."


	6. Chapter 6

Once again thanks to all you lovely people who have reviewed so far, you have really made writing this story so much more interesting and fun! I hope this chapter makes up for the mean cliff-hanger I gave you with the last chapter, and I'm afraid that there will be more cliffies to come. Anyway, enjoy and please do let me know what you think.

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Stella couldn't breathe, her fear was choking her. The doctor was stood in front of them his face unreadable, his voice holding no significant information as to the condition of Mac and yet she found herself expecting the worst answer. She could practically hear him telling them that Mr. Taylor had passed away on the operating table, that they'd done everything they could to try to save him but ultimately they'd failed.

"Stella?" She heard her name being called from what seemed like a long way away, slowly she tore herself back to the present glancing around to see who had called her name. Don was looking at her, a worried expression on his face.

"Sorry." Her voice was quiet, but she summoned the strength to concentrate on the doctor before them, she needed to know the truth about what was happening with Mac. She couldn't afford to drift off into that dreamlike state again, after all she was Stella Bonesera she was meant to be strong, she couldn't fall down now, not when so many people needed her to be a rock for them.

"As I was saying," The doctor said glancing at her curiously for a second before continuing, "The surgery took longer than expected, it turned out that he had several broken ribs, one of which was close to puncturing his lung, along with some internal bleeding. The knife wound was a relatively shallow cut, however the bullet pierced his liver causing most of the bleeding. We were eventually able to remove it, however, and those wounds should heal in time." All this seemed relatively good news, so why did he look so grave? Stella could hear her heart beating in her ears; it was going exceptionally fast as her nerves ran away with her.

"But?" Flack asked, no doubt sensing the same hesitancy from the doctor that she was. None of them wanted to be lied to, and they didn't want him to take forever explaining all the good points when there was obviously something wrong.

"Well, Mr Taylor sustained a rather severe head wound. We've scheduled an MRI to access the damage that this has caused, but I'm afraid that it doesn't look good." She felt winded…all the breath seemed to have left her body in one small gasp. Head wounds were always the most terrifying and if Mac had brain damage…he might never be himself again! He may never wake up again!

"Okay, thanks doc." Flack was once more taking charge of the situation, a part of her mind seemed to be trying to get her to get it together, after all she should be the one looking out for them all. She watched the doctor nod and leave the room before she turned to look at the two males with her, both looked slightly shell shocked.

"Okay," She said, her voice not betraying the conflict of emotions boiling in her soul "We need to let Danny and Lindsay know. Hawkes can you get back to the lab, we need to keep some people on the Hopkins murder." As he looked at her she saw what seemed like a flash of reproach behind his eyes, before he nodded and left the room. She didn't want to have to send him away but they needed to keep on top of the rest of their work…no matter how hard this day would turn out to be.

"You didn't have to send him out so quickly after that." Flack's voice was quiet, obviously he didn't want to draw attention to them but she couldn't help anger begin to surface. He may be partially right but they didn't have the luxury of time here!

"Look Flack, I don't need your advice on this, okay? We've got too much to do to just sit back…no matter how much we may want to walk away from this one." The minute this was out of her mouth she regretted it, she didn't want to snap at him but she couldn't help it. Her emotions were on overdrive, and nothing she tried to do was stopping them. Don looked hurt for a second before a mask slipped over his face; slowly he turned and headed towards the door out of the waiting room.

"Don, wait." He stopped but didn't turn back to look at her, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap I just…God, Don what do I do? My best friend is in hospital, he may not wake up again and I've got to try and keep the team together…" Her speech was cut off as his hands took hold of her shoulders, she looked up into his eyes and saw unshed tears glittering in those blue orbs.

"Stell, I know you've got to try and keep everything together but we've got to take it easier on one another, okay? We're all gunna be emotional, well some more than others, but let's just catch the son of a bitch who did this to Mac. Once that's done, well then we can go about biting each other's heads off. How does that sound?" It sounded sensible; it sounded plausible, hell it sounded like something she should have said.

"That sounds good." She said simply, smiling weakly up at him as he squeezed her shoulders once before letting go. "One of us should stay here." Stella knew it was the only logical thing to do; after all you couldn't leave it up to the doctors to get in touch with them. She knew that Flack would be desperate to stay but he was probably needed more than her at the moment, and also she had to get in touch with Reed.

"Okay," One glance at her face and he knew that she was the one to be staying here for the time being, "Ring me if there's any news, and I mean anything, Stell." He took a last look around the waiting room before he too exited and left her alone. Once he had disappeared through the door she crossed her arms across her chest, hugging herself and trying to work this whole thing out in her head. She would have to get in touch with Danny, Lindsay and Reed soon but there was no point talking to them if she wasn't sure what she was actually going to say to them.

A long-fingered hand rose and she rubbed her face softly, almost as though she was trying to wipe away the emotions that were threatening to overpower her once more. The phone calls had to take priority and she would just have to tell them the truth, no point in dancing around the point. Slowly she followed in her two male companion's footsteps and left the waiting room, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket as she moved.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Danny looked around Mac's living room with a trained eye, it hadn't taken a genius to work out that this had been where the trouble had taken a violent turn. There were blood spatters all across the walls and pieces of furniture were either overturned or broken. Each time he took another look at the room he tried to put the events that had occurred here in order, but he could never quite get it to seem right.

The male turned and walked out of the living room and headed towards the open-plan kitchen, the team had already found an empty coffee mug placed on one of the counters and the kettle had been turned on so obviously Mac had gotten up at some point in the night to make himself a drink, then he must have heard the intruders and left his preparations to stop them.

Blue eyes roved around the kitchen his head tilting slightly to better take in the entire area, suddenly something caught his eye. It was hidden underneath one of the cupboards on the floor, now that he'd turned his head it kept on hitting the light and glinting at him. He held up his camera and snapped a few photographs before kneeling down and crawling closer in order to get a close-up view. Once these pictures had been taken he reached out tentatively. Finally his fingers clasped around the wooden hilt of a kitchen knife and he pulled it out carefully, before holding it up to examine it. There was blood on the blade; it had already dried crusting over the utensil.

"Lindsay!" He called, standing up and trying not to wince as his knees rebelled at the sudden movement. Honestly, it wasn't a good sign when your muscles and joints were aching at the grand old age of 33! The female joined him within seconds and stared at the knife for a few seconds,

"Where was it?" She asked, holding out an evidence bag for him to drop the knife in it he could tell that they were both hoping for the same thing, that Mac had used this on his attacker.

"Just down there, it was pretty well hidden." She nodded sealing the bag as she did so; once this was done she headed back to her pack and deposited the item.

"Well I think they came in through the window." She said as she walked back towards the window, which was definitely large enough for someone to climb through. "It's open, but no prints." Great that meant that the attackers had most probably worn gloves, why couldn't they have some criminals who forgot their gloves for once?

"Okay, well I think we've got everything for the moment. Let's get this stuff back to the lab." He said glancing about him once more to make sure that the whole team had heard him. They'd been through every room in the apartment, had done the normal routine of taking photos and dusting for prints. They would have to wait until they got back to the lab to see if they had any evidence that gave them a suspect. Suddenly his cell started to ring,

"Messer." It took him a second to answer the call; it was obvious that he was waiting on information about Mac.

_"Danny, it's Stella. The doctor came out of surgery about ten minutes ago, he said that Mac's survived the surgery but that there may be complications."_

"What?!"

_"He had a head injury and they're worried what effects it may have on him."_

"Oh…" Silence fell on the line for a few seconds,

_"Danny?"_

"Sorry Stella. Um…okay, thanks."

_"How's it going at the scene?"_ She was back to her professional best, a clear indication that he too should get back to the work at hand and try to think about Mac when he was able to get to his bedside.

"We've got numerous blood spatters, including some high velocity spatters. In my opinion there's too much blood to just be Mac's, so I'm guessing that he got his attacker with something. We found a discharged gun and a knife, there are a few prints around but we reckon they're Mac's."

_"Okay, thanks Danny, and good work. If you can get that stuff back to the lab."_

"Sure, will do."

_"And I'll probably see you a bit later."_ She knew him too well and he couldn't stop the small smile that spread across his face, it was probably clear to everyone that he'd be at the hospital as quickly as he possibly could.

Once the call was disconnected the male noticed that Lindsay was watching him, one eyebrow raised in curiosity. He took a deep breath readying himself for explaining exactly what he'd just been told.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Stella took a deep breath of the wonderfully polluted air of Manhattan, her spirits still downtrodden from having to relay quite depressing news to both Danny and Reed. The latter had taken it quite badly, and had been desperately trying to figure out a way of getting down to the hospital quickly, she'd had to tell him that he didn't need to be down here right away and that someone would be with Mac pretty much round the clock. He'd calmed down a bit after that and had agreed that he would come over later in the afternoon.

She turned and walked back into the dreaded hospital, the smell of disinfectant hitting her once more. In a way she preferred the polluted air outside to the almost stale air in this place, although this may also have something to do with the fact that she hated hospitals. Hated them with a passion. The only thing they were any good for was for causing misery and pain. She shook off these thoughts as she rounded the familiar corner and stood in the doorway of the waiting room once more, all she wanted to do was be able to see Mac but the doctor hadn't told them where to go or anything about seeing him.

Before she could take her seat once more a nurse appeared at her side, looking at her as she spoke.

"Are you here with Mac Taylor?"

"Yes." She couldn't stop the small feeling of trepidation, which began to creep into her mind; this could possibly be bad news. But then again she could just be being paranoid.

"Would you like to see him? I'm afraid you won't be allowed very long, but the doctor has said that he's allowed a visitor."

"Yes please." Following the nurse out of the room Stella felt a surge of relief at the thought of seeing Mac, however this feeling was soon quashed when they reached her friend's hospital room and she saw him lying there with god knows how many tubes and wires going in and out of his body. His face was pale except for a 9mm gun shaped bruise blossoming on his forehead; his normally alert green eyes were closed and unresponsive.

The only sign of life was the beeping of the heart monitor and the noise of the machine that was basically breathing for him. The nurse soon left her alone with the unconscious form of her friend, and slowly she moved forwards and took a seat by his side. She hadn't realised he would look this bad. Sure the doctor had instilled in all of them that his chances weren't good at the moment, but she had almost deluded herself into thinking that he'd at least be breathing on his own without the aid of some machine.

As she sat down in yet another uncomfortable chair, which was set out beside his bed, she reached out and held his hand gently. Slowly she stroked his fingers with her own using the touch to remind herself that he was still here, and that he hadn't gone anywhere. Her gaze was stuck on his face willing him to make some kind of movement to show that he recognised the touch, something that would show that he wasn't lost just yet.

"Hey, Mac." She said finally, remembering what people had said about talking to patients in hospitals when they were unconscious. She'd heard that sometimes they could hear you and that it helped them realise that they weren't alone.

"It's me, Stella. Thought I'd come and keep you company for a while." Her fingers continued to stroke her friend's hand, "You know you've got us all worried about you. You really shouldn't go putting us through this, you know, it'll do nothing for my nerves." She let out a weak chuckle, trying to make her voice sound light-hearted and almost as if she was having a normal conversation with him.

"I'm just so glad I'm finally able to see you, honestly I've been stuck outside for hours! I was getting close to screaming and hitting someone, although if I'd done that I don't think they'd have let me in here at all." Still no response from the prone figure lying on the bed, but she continued not wanting to let her constant stream of useless chatter cut off.

"Mac, if you can hear me I'd love for some kind of sign. I must look really strange just talking to myself, you could really help me by waking up now." Yeah she knew that there was about zero chance of that happening, but it was worth a try.

"God Mac, what happened? I thought nothing could take you down. You're a marine…" Another soft chuckle escaped her lips, "As if that makes any difference, you're as human as the rest of us. I don't know why, but none of us can accept that you're hurt. It's like we've just refused to believe that you could ever be injured…you're the one constant in our lives you've always been there." A solitary tear fell from her eye, tracing a path down her cheek before it fell onto the white sheets of Mac's bed. "I don't want you to leave us, not yet. Hell, I don't want you to ever leave us, you're my best friend Mac and I love you. You hear me? So you don't get a choice in this matter, you are going to wake up, you hear me? You will wake up." A second and third tear joined their fellow on the sheets of Mac's hospital bed and soon more and more were rolling down her cheeks. She didn't care who saw her; she was allowed to cry now. Mac had always made her feel safe, secure and he'd always been the one she could cry with.

Glancing up at her friend's face once more she could have sworn she saw the tiniest of smiles on his face, but a second later it was gone. It must have just been the light. Silence fell in the small room, only broken by the soft sobs from Stella as she gave up on trying to hold her tears.


	7. Chapter 7

Thanks again for your reviews, they've made my day :D Also...please don't hate me at the end of this chapter I'm afraid it's another cliffie.

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Don walked down the corridor his blue eyes glancing around him, looking through the glass walls in the lab at the teams hard at work. They were working on so many different mysteries and murders, and now they were looking into an attack on one of their own. The whole building seemed to feel different, everyone was slightly preoccupied and it didn't have that open, welcoming and slightly intimidating feeling anymore. Now it was just yet another building which just happened to have cool equipment, which given half the chance he'd love to be able to play around with. He'd never quite understood how much a person could affect the atmosphere of a place, but with Mac 'indisposed' everything seemed to have changed.

Finally he reached the right door and stepped into the room where Danny was bending over a microscope, for a few seconds Flack studied his friend trying to gauge his feelings before he started a conversation. However, Danny didn't seem to be giving anything away and Don guessed that he was burying himself in his work so as not to think about Mac.

"Hey, Messer." He said, leaning against the doorframe and allowing a small smile to cross his lips. One of the first true smiles to pass across his face since yesterday, he knew that he was still trying to process the events of today. The male looked up at him, nodded slightly before placing his glasses back on and turning to face him.

"Hey, Flack."

"What ya got?" He asked, pushing himself off the doorframe and moving closer to Danny his eyes roaming across the different apparatuses that were set up. In all fairness he had no idea what most of these things did, but he wasn't likely to admit that especially not to Danny.

"Lindsay's running the blood samples through CODIS, I've been looking through the prints but they all match to Mac. These guys were good, Don."

"They'll slip up somewhere, maybe Lindsay will get a match on the blood." He said, trying to sound hopeful but inside he felt increasingly pessimistic. Sure it had only been a matter of hours since the attack, but everything seemed to be dragging exceptionally slowly all he wanted to do was find the people responsible for this and then get them locked behind bars. Then he could go home and sleep for eternity…or at least until the next time he was called to go and catch the bad guys again.

"Yeah, I guess." Danny turned away from him, looking back at the microscope again. Flack couldn't help but be intrigued as to why his friend was using a microscope; he hadn't said anything about finding trace at the scene.

"What's with the microscope?" He titled his head slightly trying to see the male's face, wondering whether another crime had come in.

"Hawkes asked me to look at some trace from the Hopkins crime scene, but to tell you the truth I couldn't give a damn about it." Flack had been waiting for this; he'd been wondering how long it would take for Danny to start to break down. When Louie had been attacked he'd been there for Danny, tried to help him and together with Mac they'd put him, in a way, back together again. But he'd had help then, he was no good with comforting people or even helping them get through things. He could extend to taking him out for a beer, getting him to thrash out his problems, his worries…but when it came to feelings, yeah that was where he stumbled.

"Didn't you guys find any trace at Mac's?" He hoped that there wasn't an accusatory tone in his voice; after all he didn't blame them for not being able to find anything. Sure, it would make his job a lot easier if they turned around and said 'hey, we've got DNA evidence that puts this guy in the frame', but they'd been in tough situations before and somehow they'd pulled through. He just hoped that this was one of those times.

"No." Don could practically feel the suppressed anger radiating off his friend, and decided that he would take a step back from this conversation, for now anyway, because he definitely did not want to see Danny blow up in the lab. Before he could steer the conversation back towards safer ground he heard running footsteps behind him, and turned in time to see Lindsay running towards them.

An eyebrow rose slightly as she skidded to a halt in the doorway, a smile seemed to be threatening to emerge and he knew that this was good news.

"We've got a match to the blood we found at the scene." That one statement was enough to make Flack want to dance for joy, in all honesty he was a heartbeat away from pushing all the equipment out of the way, jumping on the desk and doing a celebratory cancan.

Instead of giving in to that particular urge he shared a quick look with Danny, before hurrying after Lindsay who had already taken off back up the corridor. He broke into a slow jog revelling in the slight exertion; he missed the simple joy that came with a little bit of exercise. Finally they rounded the corner and moved over to the female who was stood before one of the many computer screens in this particular lab.

Blue optics became fixed on the information that was displayed on the screen, this was insane they had a name, picture, address…thank God the guy had previous! These were the times he was happy that they had CODIS, even if he didn't quite understand how it all worked.

"Okay, so this is our guy?" He asked, scanning his memory for any indication that he'd had dealings with one 'Frank Rice', apparently he'd already been convicted for violent assault, assault with a deadly weapon, assaulting a police officer and the list went on. This guy wasn't exactly a nice piece of work. At this thought Flack perked up a bit, this meant that he could have some fun with this arrest.

"Yeah, I've run it twice just to be sure but it's definitely his blood that was on the knife." This statement caused Don to feel a glimmer of pride, Mac had really tried to help them get this guy and he'd done well to manage to get the guy with any weapon. Then again Mac Taylor was an ex-marine, trained with almost every weapon under the sun so it made sense that he'd been able to hurt him.

"Okay, so I think it's time we paid him a visit."

XXXXXXXXX

Stella had been silent for a while now; she'd broken off talking before she made herself hoarse. In a way she'd been hoping for a response from Mac, even him telling her off for being so stupid would have done, but he hadn't moved a muscle since she'd arrived. The sound that kept her going was the regular beeping of the heart monitor, as long as that kept on going she could cope with the silence, all she wanted was for him to stay with her.

Her legs were beginning to object to sitting down for so long and she glanced at her watch before blanching slightly at the time it showed. She'd been sat here for a good two hours. Maybe it would be best if she got up and had a cup of coffee…that was if she could actually tear herself away from her friend.

"I'll be back in a minute, okay Mac?" She said, not exactly expecting a response and she didn't get one, before standing up and leaving the hospital room. It was a much nicer room than the waiting room, especially now that she wasn't surrounded by people who were waiting for news on their loved ones; she hadn't been able to stand the tension in that room. At least in here she could concentrate on her own pain and fear without worrying that the people around her would begin to break down. She knew that if one of them had started to cry she wouldn't have been far behind, at least this way she could tear up in private.

The corridors throughout the hospital looked like your average corridors; long, white and horribly clean. You could never feel at 'home' in a place like this it was too damn spotless, but then again if it wasn't all pristine then they'd just get closed down for unsanitary conditions. There really wasn't a winning strategy in this scenario.

As she was nearing the coffee machine she changed her mind, instead of getting a drink she'd get some fresh air and that way she could turn her cell on and check in with the team. After a few minutes of trying not to get lost in the huge building she found herself at the automatic front doors, as she stepped through them she pulled her cell out and switched it back on. Before she could begin to look for Danny, Lindsay, Hawkes or Flack's numbers a call came through; she couldn't help but jump at the sudden vibrations in her hand.

"Bonasera?" She said as she placed the phone against her ear,

_"Stella, hey it's Danny, just thought you might like to know we got a match on the blood on the knife in Mac's apartment."_ She was hard pressed not to shout for joy; at least they knew that Mac had managed to get his attackers with some kind of weapon.

"Great, who is it?"

_"A Frank Rice, Flack's got some of his buddies and is going to pay him a visit now."_ Stella nodded slightly before realising that Danny couldn't actually see her,

"Okay, that's great work Danny."

_"Actually it was Lindsay who was running the blood samples; I'm still working on the trace underneath Joshua Hopkins' nails."_

"Okay, thanks Danny. Let me know when you've got more information."

_"Sure thing Stell. Um…Stell, how's Mac?"_ What to tell him?

"He's…he's still there Danny." That was about the best she could do, she couldn't lie to him and tell him that Mac was fine.

_"Good. See ya soon Stella."_

"Bye Danny." The call was ended and she breathed a slight sigh of relief, in a way she was glad that Danny had gotten hold of her this way she wasn't away from Mac for too long. After taking one last huge lungful of air she turned back around and hurried back into the hospital, retracing her footsteps back to Mac's room and praying that she didn't get lost on the way.

XXXXXXXXX

Flack had his bullet-proof vest on once more, and he couldn't help remarking on the horrible restrictions it created. Sure it kept you safe but still it was hell to wear, surely they could invent something that looked slightly smarter. The rest of his team were crowding around the address they'd been given for Frank Rice, their guns trained on the door all ready and waiting for any sign of activity. He rapped on the wooden door sharply before shouting,

"Frank Rice. NYPD, open up." From within the house there was a crash and frantic activity, as he no doubt tried to escape through a back door. Without second thoughts Flack shouldered the door, thankful that it gave way under the pressure and flanked by his other officers he hurried into the house. The whole neighbourhood had seemed quite respectable, and it was hard to believe that such a hardened criminal lived here if he had had to have a guess about the occupant he would have said a new family.

One the team moved forwards checking the area but seeing no sight of their man, however, the remnants of a bowl that had been thrown on the floor in the criminals haste to run were plain for all to see. Flack continued to walk through the house his own 9mm held at the ready, just in case this guy decided to come barrelling out of a door and attack him. He rounded a corner and took in the hallway in front of him, the stairs stood at the opposite end and there were two rooms on either side of him. He pushed the door of the one to his right open slowly, did a quick search and found nothing, before he moved onto the other door. This room also revealed nothing, so it was up the stairs for him.

He took them one at a time his heart pounding in his ears, the adrenaline pumping in his veins. He knew that the guy was around here somewhere, he had the house surrounded so there was no way he'd been able to escape. No, he was hiding around here somewhere waiting to pounce. Once he reached the landing he took another scan of the immediate area, and saw no clues as to the man's hiding place. As a kid this guy must have been great at hide and seek!

Don inched forwards slowly, blue eyes flicking around the corridor in front of him and the doors that led off. He reached the one nearest him and kicked the door open; instead of empty space beyond the entrance he was greeted by a large figure with a shaved head. That was about all he could manage to observe before the male tackled him and literally lifted him into the air before letting him fall back onto the floor. Flack could feel the breath being knocked out of his body as he hit the carpet, and he was unable to lift himself out of his prone position straight away.

Frank Rice stood over him for a second before kicking the gun out of his hand and across the floor, then his large hands flew down and soon they were around Don's throat. He was lifted upright once more, but this time he couldn't breathe. His instincts took over and before he actually knew what had happened he'd punched the man before him hard in the face, causing the male to stagger backwards and release the chokehold. Once Don was able to breathe properly again, he practically jumped on the man before him wrestling him to the ground, which was no easy thing to do seeing as the guy weighed considerably more than he did. The figure beneath him struggled, catching Flack in the jaw with one lucky kick before he could turn away properly, finally the rest of his team arrived and with the help of two others he managed to cuff the perp and get him out of the house.

Once Don was alone in his car he pressed a hand lightly to his slightly swollen jaw, this was not a good day for any of them. He glanced in one of the wing mirrors of his car, examining his reflection closely to see how bad a mark this fresh injury would make; thankfully it didn't seem to look too bad at the moment.

XXXXXXXXX

Stella was halfway back to Mac's hospital room when she heard something that made her heart stand still, a long, continuous beep was coming from this corridor. Her feet began to carry her faster down the corridor, and soon she was running down the hallway no longer caring that she was wearing slightly inappropriate shoes for this kind of exercise. All that mattered was making sure that that noise wasn't coming from Mac's room.

Suddenly several nurses were passing her, and with a stab of horror she saw that they were heading into Mac's room. All the other sounds around her seemed to be melding into one, she could no longer see things properly they were all blurring together. The door to Mac's room was the only thing her eyes would focus on, but when she finally reached it her entrance was barred by a male nurse. She fought against him, trying to get nearer her friend as the doctors and nurses around the bed tried to revive him.

"NO! Please! MAC!" She screamed, tears falling down her cheeks without her even realising. Finally she gave up struggling and allowed the male to manoeuvre her towards the large window, through which she could look in and see what was going on. She wanted nothing more then to shout and scream, maybe even break the window…she just wanted to be near Mac!

A defibrillator appeared and she watched as shocks passed through her friend's body, sending him jerking into the air before he hit the bed once more. Still no heartbeat. This was not happening!

"Please…no." She whispered, praying to whatever deity may be listening that her friend would pull through, she couldn't lose him. Another shock, another glance to the flat line on the heart monitor and all the while Stella could feel her self-control slipping away. Within seconds her knees gave way and they hit the floor as the tears overwhelmed her.


	8. Chapter 8

Sorry for the small delay in posting this chapter, and I'm sorry but I have a feeling there may be a delay with the next few as well. School work is beginning to pick up and I've got Uni open days, job interviews etc to go to. I'll do my best to keep updates regular but I just thought I should let you guys know the reasons why they might be a bit later than usual.

Thanks again to all you wonderful people who have reviewed, and also a big thank-you and hugs to my beta who really helped me make this chapter better because in all honesty it wasn't one of my best. Also before I forget, there's a bit of a debate going on as to Angell's first name and even on her IMBD profile both Jessica and Jennifer are listed as her name...confusing to say the least, so I chose Jennifer because it was the most frequent name. If anyone knows what her name really is then please do let me know, because I'm really curious! Anyway back to the story.

* * *

Don felt like the whole world was crashing down around him; the more he let his mind wander the more he wished that he had something to dull the ache that had nothing to do with his bruised jaw. All around him his fellow officers were milling around, chatting about their own arrests but all the noises were blending into one and he no longer cared about any of it. In a few minutes he would have to go and interview their suspect, he had to once more assume the mask of a professional police officer out to do his bit to make the city of New York a little bit safer.

With a sigh he stood, stretching his legs slightly before he moved off towards the interview room. Instead of entering the room where the suspect was sat next to his lawyer conferring softly, he walked into the room next to it and observed the two of them through the glass. He didn't want to barrel in there just yet, mainly because he needed to wait for his partner to appear so that they could conduct the interview together, but also because he wanted to collect his thoughts. If he went in there all guns blazing then he'd ruin any chances of getting this guy sent down, and he couldn't risk that.

The door opened suddenly and he turned to see Jennifer Angell enter, she looked at him for a few moments a grim expression on her face. Obviously his thoughts were similar to her's, and soon she offered him a small smile before motioning with her head that they should go into the interview room and begin. He tried to smile back but the muscles in his face wouldn't work properly anymore, instead he settled for a short nod and moved past her out into the corridor. With one deep breath the mask slipped into place, and he held the door to the interview room open for his female counterpart. She walked through it slowly and headed towards her seat only looking up at the suspect once she was sat down. Flack took his time closing the door, turning on the tape and sitting down next to Angell. The male before them seemed bored, so obviously he'd been through too many of these interviews to count. His lawyer looked…well basically the same as every other lawyer did, pretentious and supercilious. Now there were two words that you wouldn't expect to come out of Don Flack's mouth, or even to be in his head.

"So Frank," He said, leaning forwards in his chair and placing his arms on the table. "We've got your DNA on the walls of the scene of a murderous attack on a member of the New York Police Department. Also we've got your DNA on another victim, so Frank that's murder and attempted murder we can charge you with. Oh, yeah and assaulting a police officer." He motioned towards the bruise forming on his jaw, he allowed the ghost of a smile to appear on his face at the lawyers uncomfortable expression. It was fun making lawyers squirm, mainly because they managed to kick him to the curb too often for his liking.

"So?" One eyebrow rose at his suspect's blatant disregard for what Flack had just laid before him, how could the guy not care about the fact that he was going to jail for one hell of a long time?

"Come on Frank, it's a bit leap going from assault to murder. Do you really expect us to believe that you were on your own on this?" Angell stepped in, leaning forwards and practically mirroring Don's pose as she stared at Rice. The male shifted slightly in his seat but his expression remained stoic, it didn't look like he was willing to crack just yet.

"Okay Frank, we've also got fingerprints at the first crime scene, fingerprints which don't match yours. That means that someone else was with you when you murdered Joshua Hopkins. Now we can do this the easy way, in which you tell us who you were working with, or we can make life very difficult for you." Brown eyes found blue, as Rice stared straight at Flack before smirking softly. Slowly the suspect leant back in his chair folded his arms and kept his mouth firmly shut.

"So Frank, you're going to go down for murder and let the person you were with get away with it? Do you really think they'd do the same for you?" Angell spoke once more, and Don could feel his own impatience begin to build inside him. Rice's lawyer looked slightly hot under the collar, not quite sure what to advise his client. Unless he could prove that they'd tampered with evidence at the crime scene then there really wasn't too much of a case for his client's defence.

"Look, love," Flack bristled slightly as Frank leant towards Angell leering at the female, Don was naturally protective of his friends, especially women, so it took a lot to stop himself decking the man before him. "All you've got against me is DNA, which in all fairness you could have planted there. Do you have any other connections? Anything else to pull on me?"

Slowly Flack stood, walked to the side of the table and placed his hands on the metal surface. His smile was as cold as the table underneath his fingers, and he leant in close as he spoke.

"Shall I tell you what I think? I think you're expecting your friend to get you out of this one, but let me tell you something. DNA makes for a strong case, we can send you down for life and your friend will still be walking around New York. He's not gunna come and visit you, and he most definitely won't help you out. So why don't you drop the crap and tell us who your friend is, before we send you down for murder, attempted murder, assaulting a police officer…and, oh yeah, resisting arrest."

XXXXXXXXXX

The darkness was lifting from his senses, his ears were picking up odd sounds like the rhythmic beeping of some kind of machine, he could feel his eyes moving but he did not have the strength yet to open them. As sensation began to return to him he became uncomfortably aware of various things that had been stuck in him and an itchy feeling on the crook of his arm told him that an i/v was set up, which could only mean that he was in hospital. Great.

"Well his brain activity has increased," He heard a voice saying and couldn't help wondering who the man was talking about, "We can't give any guarantees but I think he's out of the woods for now." Mac began to fight harder, desperately trying to open his eyes just for a second so that he could see what was going on. What had happened to land him in here? Most of his brain seemed to have turned to useless mush, and he was finding it difficult to recall his full name let along some huge event which had brought him here.

"That's great, doc. Thanks." That voice sounded so familiar...but where from? The thick accent meant something to him, but every time an image swam in front of his face it disappeared too quickly for him to place a name. His eyes were still unwilling to open, but he didn't want to give up his struggle with the darkness just yet. With each passing minute he was becoming more and more alert, and more sensations returned to him including the fact that he really needed some food.

Slowly he tried to open his mouth, to talk, to say something! But suddenly he found that something was obstructing his mouth; there was some kind of tube down his throat. It only took him a few seconds to realise what it must be, a ventilator, but that didn't stop him from worrying. He couldn't breathe on his own! The one other time he'd been put on one of these things he'd woken to this horrible feeling and soon he was gagging, then he'd learnt that he was able to breathe on his own again but now...now he was stuck with this machine! He was conscious but a machine had to do his normal functions for him, what the hell had happened?

"Doctor! His heart rate's increased." He could hear people hurrying towards him, the voice that he recognised was trying to calm him but he was unable to respond. Someone touched his arm and he twitched his skin away from the touch, he had no idea if it was a big enough gesture for someone to notice but he had to hope. Suddenly a wonderful feeling of calm descended upon him, he could feel the effects of some drug flowing through his system. Slowly he opened his eyes, just briefly; just for two tiny seconds but it was enough for him to see the man at his bedside. The blonde-brown hair was messy, stubble was beginning to appear on his boyish face but he was still recognisable. Danny. Before he could say anything, before he could register the fact that his friend had seen his eyes flicker open, the darkness once more swallowed him up and he was lost to the world for another few hours.

XXXXXXXXX

Danny sat by Mac's bed his eyes barely leaving his friend's face; he couldn't quite believe what had happened. It was his turn to keep an eye on the boss, but he'd not been able to tear himself away for way too long now. Sure, the others had visited but he'd stayed throughout, dismissing them when they looked about ready to collapse. They'd made complaints, saying that he looked worse which was probably true, but right now he didn't care, he didn't want to be away if anything happened to Mac again. Stella had had to cope with that before; he could still see her stark white face as she stood outside Mac's room whilst the doctors used the defibrillator, his body being jolted upwards as the volts raced through his body. He'd appeared just as they'd managed to get him back, but he had had to watch Stella fall apart. She'd spent hours crying on his shoulder, and he had no idea how to comfort her. He could only think about how close they'd come to losing a great friend, again, and the fact that only one of them had been there.

Only an hour ago he'd seen his friend's eyes flicker open, just for a second or two but he was certain those green eyes had fixed on him. The nurse had given him a suppressant to ease his heart rate, and now Mac was in a deep sleep. The beeping of his heart monitor and the rasping of the ventilator were the only noises in the small hospital room.

A hand reached up and scrubbed at his face, trying to get rid of the sleep that was clinging to his eyes. His body needed rest, and the guys needed him at the lab but he just couldn't move. The hand hit the rough stubble along his jaw line and he shuddered, sure he didn't mind having a bit of 'artistic' stubble or even a bit of light facial hair, but this stubble was the stubble that screamed to the world that he hadn't been home in a while.

"Hey." He turned, dragging his eyes from the pale face of his friend, and looked towards the door. Lindsay was stood there, her gaze switching from Danny to Mac and back again. She looked uncertain, almost as if she didn't know if she were allowed inside.

"Hey, Montana." He said, smiling wearily at her. She seemed to take this as an invitation to enter, and soon she was at his side looking down at the boss.

"How's he doing?" She asked, looking down at him checking to see if he was all right. Danny couldn't meet her gaze, all he wanted to do was have everything back to normal, was that so difficult a thing to achieve?

"The doc said something about more brain activity, and I swear he opened his eyes before they gave him some drug." He said after a moments pause, and once he'd finished he could practically feel Lindsay's relief.

"That's good. So he might wake up soon?" He wanted to say 'yes of course he will', but right now he was doubting everything. He couldn't go giving false hope only to find that the next day they were putting him in the ground.

"They said it was possible." Danny felt a hand on his shoulder and allowed himself some comfort in the warmth that was spreading through his body at the touch, he hadn't realised how much he actually needed someone here with him. He'd sent Stella away not too long ago, and he hadn't quite understood that it would have been nicer to have her around with him.

Silence fell between them for a time as both watched their friend, he seemed so peaceful and sometimes Danny tried to pretend that Mac was just sleeping and that soon he'd wake up and everything would be normal again.

"Flack interviewed Frank Rice last night," Lindsay's voice cut through the silence and Danny's thoughts like a knife, and he barely suppressed a wince as he pulled himself back to the present. "Apparently he wasn't very co-operative, but Don's sure he'll break in time. Surely, the thought of going down for that long would make someone back down." Danny felt a smile begin to threaten to appear, but he quashed it under the rest of his emotions. He didn't want to smile now, he didn't want to think or feel!

"Okay." Silence fell once more between the two of them and he found himself wondering whether or not he should speak again. He'd never been good with silence; he'd always try and find some noise to blot out the quiet that would stretch on for what seemed like an eternity. Even now as an adult he liked it when there was constant chatter or murmuring, maybe that was why he didn't like leaving New York.

"Danny maybe you should go home and get some rest." Lindsay was watching him, concern once more etched into every part of her face. Finally he looked up at her, blue eyes scanning her face and he conceded a small smile. Sometimes he'd lie awake at night wondering if he'd made the right choice about getting involved with her, but at moments like this he would just look up at her and everything would just seem to click into place. He couldn't go so far as to say she was 'the one', no that would just be stupid and presumptuous, but she was definitely the person he wanted to be with right now.

"I dunno."

"Danny, he's not going anywhere. I'll wait with him for a few hours, and by then Sheldon will probably be here. He's not gunna be on his own." She was right, of course she was, but he just didn't want to move. How could he leave his friend lying there so helplessly? Sure he was in a hospital with people who knew what to do if something went wrong, but still these places weren't exactly safe…if Rice wasn't their only man then there was reason to suspect that Mac might still be a target.

"I…"

"Danny, I wasn't asking. Go home." Blue eyes widened in shock as she spoke, but his legs seemed to want to obey her. Soon he was standing upright; he shot her a small, weak smile before he left the room slightly reluctantly. Once he was out in the corridor he turned and stared through the window into Mac's room, he watched as Lindsay took up his position on the seat and held their boss's hand in hers. He could just hear her talking to him softly, keeping up the constant monologue that had been the instruction of Stella. She'd wanted everyone to talk to Mac as much as possible, keep him up to date on the case…try to make him wake up.

His gaze travelled from Lindsay to Mac's pale face and he felt his eyes begin to sting as fresh tears threatened to fall. He'd cried too much today. With this he turned and headed towards the exit, all his energy concentrating on not letting that first tear fall because once they started then he would have to give into the grief, pain and fear that was threatening to overwhelm him. He wasn't ready for that yet.


	9. Chapter 9

Wow I am so sorry for taking so long to post this chapter, school work has suddenly begun to pile on etc. Anyway hopefully the next few chapters will be up soon, because I'm going to Poland in a few days for about...3 days so no internet access.

Anyway, thanks again to all you lovely people who have reviewed so far and I can only apologise for taking so long with this chapter.

* * *

Don was about ready to hit something, literally, he was hard-pressed not to grab the idiot before him and knock him into the next century. The only thing that was stopping him was the lawyer, who was still present and would end up using the assault against him, and Angell who was also still sat beside him. They'd been at this interview for about an hour and the tape was beginning to run out, and all they'd managed to get out of the suspect were vague answers and references. It was almost as bad as last night! Honestly he felt that he deserved a medal for the amount of self-control he was exerting at the moment.

"Look Frank," With a slight sigh Flack leant forwards towards his suspect once more, "You're going down. That's pretty much certain, but wouldn't you feel better if you weren't the only one getting put away?"

"I've told you before, detective, if I tell you my life won't be worth living." A soft scoff came from his left as Angell made her feelings about this statement very clear, however, before he could speak her voice cut through the interview.

"Frank, if you give us the names of your employer and your accomplice then we can try and make this whole thing go a bit smoother for you. If you fight against us…well…" She left the subtle threat hanging in the air and Flack couldn't suppress the surge of amusement that spread through him at her words. He'd always found Jennifer an interesting female, in a way she reminded him of Stella and yet there was something so different…so attractive about her. Of course he'd never act on this attraction, at least not at the moment, mainly because he knew that 'office romances' were often short lived and ended up with awkward glances and silences.

"Look if I tell you I die…did that spell it out for you?" The urgency in Frank's voice made Don's ears prick up, he was rattled which was a good sign when looking for information or a confession. All they needed to do was push a bit further, maybe offer protection…

"Frank, do you really think that you're gunna get out of here?" It was obvious from the constant staring that the male before them knew that he was going to be put away, but what mattered was whether or not he was going to give them a name so that someone else was going down with him. "And do you really think the guy who hired you is going to be happy that we brought you in? We've got to his right-hand man; he's gunna think that you've betrayed him so right now I think we're the best option you've got." Flack finished his speech, his hands clasped together on the table top in front of him and his blue eyes boring into the suspects'. All he needed was one little flicker of an eyelid, one tiny wrinkle appearing on the male's forehead and he'd know if he'd managed to make him crack.

Nothing happened. There was no sigh, no defeated gesture only a silence that seemed to stretch for hours. Don couldn't quite believe that this guy hadn't broken yet; they'd tried every bloody trick in the book. The overwhelming urge to hit something resurfaced with a vengeance, and Flack took a deep breath to calm himself. Beside him he could feel Angell begin to stir and reasoned that she was probably as pissed off about this as he was.

As the silence continued between the four in the small interview room the ticking of the clock seemed to become louder and louder, almost as if it felt that something needed to fill the void in the room.

"Look just charge me already." Don's eyes widened slightly in surprise, it wasn't often that you met a villain so willing to just give in and accept their charges like a 'man'. Normally they were all too willing to let one of their friends take the rap with them, but this one…he was different, he was being an idiot and protecting the people that probably wouldn't think twice about killing him.

"We're offering you…" Angell was cut short by another retort from Rice,

"I don't care what you're offering me, just charge me." Flack suddenly felt deflated and he pushed himself out of his chair, before walking away from the table slightly turning his back on the other three occupants of the room. Jennifer took this to mean that she should charge him, and so she did before switching off the tape recorder and standing too. He waited for her to draw level with him before glancing at her, her face betrayed nothing but her eyes held concern as she watched him. He sent her a small smile before together they began to move towards the door,

"Oh detectives," As one they turned to look back at Rice, Don couldn't help the sense of foreboding that rose in him when he saw Rice's smirk. They hadn't managed to break this guy, they weren't even close. "Send Detective…Taylor was it? Yeah send him my best wishes." A hand on his arm stopped Flack from jumping on Frank and tearing him limb from limb, he didn't give a damn if the lawyer was there and would bring him up on charges! Frank Rice was not allowed to make inquiries about Mac, hell he shouldn't even be allowed to mention his name.

With a lot of effort Flack turned once more and his hand was on the door knob before the man's voice sounded once more from behind him.

"Oh and Detective, you may want to watch your friend. He's an easy target in hospital…you know, there may even be someone there now. But I wouldn't know." Don turned wide, blue eyes onto the suspect and this time he made no effort to disguise his fear for his friend.

"What?"

"You heard me, Detective. Now who's taking me to my comfy cell?" This time the grip on his arm was beginning to get painful but he didn't care, if it had been a guy holding him back he would have struggled against them but instead he turned on his heel and threw open the door to the corridor. He stormed out of there, and before his partner could catch up with him was running to get a unit together. Sure, Rice may be yanking his chain but he wasn't going to take anything that involved Mac lightly.

XXXXXXXXX

Lindsay had sat with Mac for a good few hours now; daybreak was already beginning to shine underneath the drawn blinds of Mac's hospital room. She felt exhausted but her brain had refused to let her doze or sleep, in fact she didn't think she'd be able to get to sleep even if she had the comfiest bed in the world. The doctor had come in once to announce that so far Mac's condition seemed to be improving, but he'd not been able to tell her much else. After this news she hurried to pass it on to everyone, because no matter how early it was they'd all wanted to have any and all information on Mac. She'd said it before, and she'll say it again, they were a very tight knit family here and now that one of them was injured they had pulled together like nothing she'd ever seen before. Almost every single one of them had taken turns to watch him, and some had refused to leave for hours. The only person who'd been unable to get here was Don, and when Lindsay had rung him to fill him in she could hear the pain in his voice. He wanted to be here so much, and yet he couldn't get out of work in order to sit here and just watch his friend.

"I'll be back in a little while Mac, I'm just going to stretch my legs. A nurse will be in in a bit, so you won't be alone for long, okay?" Lindsay knew that the others had done exactly the same as her, asked him a question with a vague hope that he'd jump up and reply. Every time he remained still and silent. The female let out a short sigh before squeezing her boss' hand briefly and leaving the room. She needed some fresh air and a change of scenery, Mac would be in good hands after all the nurses had been in to check on him regularly so far so it shouldn't matter too much if she was away for about five minutes.

A yawn escaped her lips and she raised a hand to cover her mouth, allowing her eyes to close for a brief second. She definitely needed fresh air, slowly she walked along the corridor. She reached the end and turned right, heading towards the entrance to the hospital and the Manhattan air that was calling out to her.

Suddenly a man bumped into her, his head was lowered and he obviously hadn't been looking where he was going.

"I'm so sorry." He said, looking at her quickly before he hurried off. Luckily she hadn't fallen over, because that would have just been embarrassing but she couldn't help raise an eyebrow at him as he walked away. Her eyes lingered on his retreating form for a few seconds before she shrugged off the incident and continued on her journey.

It took her a good few minutes to find the double doors that led out to the front hospital car park, but soon she reached them and let the soft morning breeze play across her face. Her short brown hair twisted and turned in the wind, and she closed her eyes for a moment to enjoy the feeling. In a way it felt like she hadn't experienced these things in years. Everything seemed to have switched between slow motion and fast forward throughout the time that Mac had been in hospital, and it felt like they'd been here such a long time.

At home she'd allowed herself to break down, but for the most part she'd remained strong not allowing the full force of all this to hit her properly, instead she'd kept reminding herself that he was still here and fighting. Sure, seeing him lying there and looking so weak had made her rethink that statement but until she heard otherwise she'd clutch at the idea that he was stronger than any other person she knew.

Yet another siren pierced the relative quiet of the area surrounding the hospital, and she looked up expecting to see another ambulance rushing past her towards the back entrance. Instead she saw a police car haring round the corner and soon the squeal of brakes cut over the siren as the car skidded to a halt not too far away from her. Her eyes widened as she saw Don emerge from the vehicle and jog towards her, he looked worried and she felt her own heartbeat quicken.

"Don?"

"Is someone with Mac?"

"What? No I don't think so, why?" He didn't answer her, instead he signalled towards the few police officers he'd dragged along with him before he ran into the hospital. She followed him as quickly as she could; trying to get his attention as she ran to find out what the hell was going on.

"Don! Don! What the hell…" Soon they rounded the corner and ran along the corridor leading to Mac's room and she still had no answer to what was going on. Flack was quite a way ahead of her and she saw him slow his run and pull out his gun, her breath caught in her chest as he hurried into Mac's hospital room. The other officers over took her as the sounds of a struggle could be heard, she sped up trying to get there to see what was going on.

To her horror she saw Don throwing a figure up against the wall, his arm on the male's neck practically crushing his trachea. The other officers were surrounding the two men glancing at each other awkwardly as if they were not sure whether or not to prise their boss off the other man. Finally Lindsay moved forwards into the room,

"Don!" Blue optics turned to stare at her, and after a few seconds he released the male glaring at him as he fell to his knees coughing and spluttering.

"You're under arrest." He spat at the figure on the floor, before he stepped back and let his boys cuff the male and lead him away. As Lindsay moved to let them past she looked at the guy's face and started, she recognised him from somewhere…he was the guy who'd bumped into her! Before she could say anything he was led away from her, instead she turned her attention to Flack.

"What the hell was that?" She asked, her voice growing progressively louder as she fought to keep her anger and confusion under control. How the hell could he do that in Mac's room? What had that guy done to warrant the crushing of his windpipe?

"We got a tip-off that someone was going to be here; when I came in here he was…tampering with some of Mac's equipment."

"What do you mean 'tampering'?" She asked, her gaze flickering towards Mac's prone body and the machinery that surrounded him.

"His hand was on the…the…what's it called?" He moved towards Mac's body and pointed to the endotracheal tube and she felt her heart skip a beat, if the guy had managed to tamper with that then Mac would have been dead within a matter of minutes.

"Oh my God." She whispered as she moved back to her seat by Mac's bed, her mind whirling with thoughts of what could have happened. "But did you really have to…?" She indicated the wall as she looked at Flack with a long-suffering gaze, honestly what was with men and their need to be overly dramatic.

"He resisted arrest." Was the simple reply which was accompanied by a shrug before the male continued, "And Mac showed me how to do it properly…it seemed appropriate somehow." Flack's eyes drifted towards the unconscious form of their friend, and Lindsay felt her gaze softening. How on earth Don thought it was appropriate to shove someone up against a wall was beyond her, but still it had thought behind it.

"You'd better get back," She said after a few seconds of silence, "You need to interview your new suspect." He nodded, tearing his eyes away from Mac as he made his way out of the room slowly.

"I'll be back later, Lindsay."

"Okay." She waited for the male to leave the room before she put her head in her hands, allowing the fear and relief wash over her. Thank goodness that they'd got here in time, if they hadn't then they would have been putting Mac into the ground this time next week. As her thoughts continued to spiral in this direction she suddenly realised that it was partly her fault, she'd left Mac on his own just so she could have a breather! What kind of a person was she?! He could have died and it would have been her fault. All her fault.


	10. Chapter 10

Sorry for the delay guys, I wasn't able to get on here before I went away to Poland but here's the next chapter. As I said last time there shouldn't be too many more chapters left, but it depends seeing as this story seems to be having a life of its own at the moment.

Thanks to all those who have been reading and reviewing so far, you're all amazing and your reviews have made writing this story so much fun, it's so nice to know that people are enjoying it and want to read more.

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Stella had finally willed herself to go to bed, although in all fairness she had found it impossible to sleep. She'd been lying in her new flat for over two hours and her eyes had not closed for longer than a minute, because every time she attempted to slip into sleep the image of Mac lying still and pale on his hospital bed swam before her. Every time the silence in her home seemed to be peaceful once more the sound of a flat line would pierce her ears. She could practically see Mac's body being jerked upwards by the volts passing through him, the doctors turning to the heart monitor and still seeing the continuous line. In a way she was terrified of falling asleep in case her nightmare was that Mac had really died, that they hadn't been able to get him back…a dream like that would play havoc with her. She couldn't cope with that.

With a sigh she rolled over onto her side and stared at the window, which had the curtains drawn, beyond the glass she could just about hear the sounds of a city going about its business despite the early hours. New York was one of those cities which never slept, it would keep on going throughout the day and night which was exceptionally annoying for those members of the NYPD because it meant that crime was always rife. But then again that was what got their pay cheques written.

Shifting onto her back once more she stared up at the ceiling, wondering what time it was but lacking the energy to actually look at the clock on her bedside table. Suddenly she heard a strange noise coming from her left; she rolled her head and saw her cell quivering on the table. Her hand reached out and snatched it up, glanced at the caller ID before putting the phone to her ear.

"Bonasera?"

"Stella, hey, umm…there was a bit of a problem at the hospital." Within seconds she was upright in bed and throwing back the covers,

"What's happened Lindsay?" She grabbed a t-shirt out of a drawer, pulling it over her pyjama top before pressing the phone back to her head.

"A man got into Mac's room, Flack managed to grab him before he did any damage," A sob broke Lindsay's speech and Stella felt her heart go out to her, "I should never have left him. I just thought that it would be all right for a bit of time."

"Lindsay, calm down. I'll be right there, okay?"

"Okay." A sniff was audible on the other end of the phone and all Stella wanted to do was get to the hospital, Lindsay needed someone to be with her at the moment and she really needed to know what had happened. The call cut off abruptly and she glanced at the cell before placing it down on the bed and struggling to pull on the rest of her clothes, she didn't care about looking nice just as long as she looked 'presentable'.

After literally throwing on underwear, trousers and a jumper she grabbed all her essentials, including her cell and keys, and left her flat. She tried not to run to the lifts, but her legs were fighting to move faster and her heart seemed to be ruling most of her functions today. She pressed the button before she stepped back watching the lights of the floors appear as the lift rushed towards her. Finally it pinged into life and she pushed her way through the doors before they were fully open, stabbing the button for the lobby and began her waiting to reach the bottom floor. Everything would be okay once she reached the hospital and she was able to sit with Mac. God, she never should have left him!

XXXXXXXXX

Danny had tried to return home in order to sleep but he hadn't been able to bring himself to drive to his apartment, instead his car had taken him back to the lab and he was once more back at work. Sure, Lindsay had told him to go get some rest…well most people had told him to go and sleep but no matter how tired he was feeling there was a small buzz inside him and he knew that he'd never be able to relax sufficiently in order to sleep. Work would help him block out what had happened and if someone kicked him out of the lab, well there was always a bar where he could dull the memories altogether.

Slowly he walked down one of the long corridors in the building, on either side of him he could see a handful of people still working at whatever crime they were trying to solve. He knew that they were all suffering to some degree due to Mac's attack, after all he knew pretty much everyone's name in the whole of this building and a guy like that got a lot of respect from his employees. It was hard to find people in this building who disliked Mac, he knew that his boss had made plenty of enemies in the past but here he was someone you could go to if you needed help and he just seemed to inspire confidence.

Finally he reached 'his' lab and he grabbed the white coat, which was hanging from a coat hook near the door, pulled it on over his clothes before moving towards the table. He could already feel his professional façade slipping into place once more, and he enjoyed the sense that almost nothing could bother him when he was in this state. All around him were familiar sounds, sights and smells so this was the perfect environment to forget his problems and just get back to work. Maybe he'd find something that could help one of the cases they were working on.

XXXXXXXXX

Don stood behind the glass looking into the interview room; the man they had arrested only a few hours ago was sat in the chair looking nervous. He'd refused the offer of calling his lawyer and had even declined having one of the lawyers the police kept for special occasions. At this thought he couldn't help but chuckle softly, he made it sound like these people were pets and that they were only brought out when the NYPD really needed them. Blue eyes were fixed on the male behind the glass, his mind was racing, wondering how best to break the kid. They hadn't gotten anything out of him so far, but they'd got his DNA and fingerprints so all they really needed to do was run them through CODIS and AFIS and see if he had any hits. They'd find out who he was eventually, Flack would make sure of it.

At the sound of the door opening he wrenched his eyes away from their suspect, his gaze was met by Detective Angell and he felt a horrible sense of déjà vu. Surely they'd done this sometime before? Her eyes were cold as they travelled towards the glass and to the male beyond it, no doubt the same feelings that were fuelling him were coursing through her body whenever she looked at the guy or thought about what he'd been trying to do. He could have taken Mac away from them today, and to be honest Flack wouldn't have cared if he'd crushed the guy's trachea, just as long as he got him the hell away from Mac.

"Shall we?" He asked finally, gesturing towards the door behind her and watching as with a small smile in his direction she turned and left the room. He followed after her swiftly, closing the door behind him and moving towards the interview room. Before he could enter through the door with his partner he heard a voice calling his name from behind him,

"Don!" He turned and saw Danny running towards him, his friend looked flushed and out of breath but also excited. Flack's head tilted to one side as he considered the male jogging towards him.

"What's up Messer?" He asked, "I'm a bit busy at the moment." He indicated the room behind him where Angell was stood with her hand on the door knob waiting to enter.

"I just ran the fingerprints of the guy you just brought in through our database, and guess what they matched?" Don folded his arms, trying not to show his growing impatience and excitement but no doubt he was failing miserably.

"What?"

"The fingerprints that Lindsay couldn't identify on the Hopkins case. We can link him to the murder!" Danny was practically bouncing up and down as he said this, and Don wasn't too far from doing that himself. That meant that they had him on one charge and had damn good evidence for another.

"Thanks Danny." He said, allowing a swift grin to appear on his face before he turned to face Angell. She seemed to have heard the exchange as her eyes were gleaming with happiness, no doubt they'd both enjoy this interview especially now that they had hard evidence to link this guy with one murder.

"Oh Messer," He turned swiftly as he remembered something, "Have we actually found out who this guy is?" A shake of his friend's head was his answer before the male was running back up the corridor and out of sight, Flack could only guess that he was going back to hurry the DNA sample along so that they could figure out their suspect's name.

"You ready now?" Jennifer's voice made him turn once more, and together they headed into the interview room. The male was sat down on the chair on the opposite side of the table, he was sweating profusely and Flack figured that this would be an easy interview. If the guy was rattled by just being here, then it wouldn't take long to shake it out of him. The two detectives took their time turning on the tape recorder and sitting down, then slowly Don looked at the suspect his eyes only betraying a tiny part of the anger he felt towards this man.

"So, sir, are you gunna tell us your name?" Angell spoke first, her expression hard and searching as she watched the male before her. If they could just find out his name then that was a start, once this was done they could concentrate on finding out why the hell he had been in Mac's hospital room.

"Why should I?" Their suspect could be no older then twenty-one and he was trying, and failing, to act tough as if he did this every day. Flack had seen enough hardened criminals to recognise a faker when he saw one.

"Because then we don't have to call you 'sir' all the time. In my opinion you don't deserve the title, so if we know your name it'll make me happier."

"And that would make me want to tell you how?" This guy was seriously starting to get on his nerves, but he could not allow his feelings to overtake his head at the moment. Instead he lent back in his chair, folding his arms and staring at the male before him with one eyebrow slightly raised. These small gestures seemed to worry the suspect even more, and soon he was fidgeting in his chair.

"Okay, so if you won't tell us your name how about you tell us what you were doing in the hospital room of a NYPD Crime scene investigator?" Jennifer spoke once more, her arms slowly landing on the table as she leant towards their suspect.

"I…I…I knew him, I just wanted to make sure he was okay." Don couldn't quite believe how bad this guy was at lying; surely he must have lied at some point in his life so he should have had at least a bit of practice. In his mind Flack could see their suspect as a child trying to lie to his mum about who had taken the last cookie whilst the remnants of said cookie were in his hands and on his face.

"Okay, sure. Where did you meet him?" Flack asked, his eyebrow rising still further as he stared at the male.

"Um…well my dad knew him…a few…years ago, yeah, and so I knew him…through my dad." The male's voice began to trail off at the end of this sentence, and Flack decided that this was the point that he should wade in with the heavy guns.

"Okay, I'll lay the cards on the table. We've got your fingerprints all over a murder scene and then we find you trying to tamper with the life-support machine of an NYPD CSI. This isn't looking too good for you is it?" The suspect's eyes were wide as he stared between the two detectives, "So you can either tell us what we want to know, or you can go to jail with your buddy Mr Rice and enjoy more quality time with him." At the sound of Rice's name the suspect actually whimpered, and Don felt a surge of relief this guy was going to break and pretty soon. Finally a breakthrough in this case!

XXXXXXXXX

Danny had run back to the lab as quickly as possible, he wanted to get hold of the person who was holding the DNA sample taken from the suspect downstairs. If they could just figure out who he was then at least they could try to find out his connection to Mac. As he hurried throughout the building he replayed Stella's phone call to him in his head, he hadn't believed her at first…no one would have been that stupid to try and tamper with Mac's life-support, but apparently someone had and it seemed like Lindsay was blaming herself. There was a small voice in him that was saying that it was partly her fault, if she hadn't left him then Mac would never have been in danger. Maybe he should have stayed there and made Lindsay go home. Then he could have made sure that his friend was safe.

"Danny!" He looked up at the sound of his name, and he saw Hawkes jogging towards him.

"What's up Hawkes?"

"I've found something on our nameless suspect's DNA." With this he led Danny back towards his own lab, and pulled him in front of the computer screen. On the screen there was a chart with several spikes shooting upwards; Danny raised an eyebrow at Sheldon.

"Look." The other male clicked a button and a second chart appeared on the right of the screen, Danny looked between the two and his heart started to raise. They shared common alleles.

"Father and son." He breathed, glancing at Hawkes to make sure he was correct.

"Exactly, and what's better is that the Dad's got previous." A few more clicks of the mouse and a picture appeared, Richard Clark, and boy did he have some convictions.

"He just got out from doing an eight year stretch for possession of a class-A drug, supplying a class-A drug, assault and resisting arrest." Danny said, reading out loud some of the information on the screen. This guy was definitely not someone you wanted to mess with, hell he sounded worse than the Tanglewood Boys and in his mind those lot had been terrifying.

"I'll let Flack know." Danny walked out of the room, pulling his cell out as he did. If he called his friend it would save time and then he and Hawkes could gather more information, instead of him running up and down stairs for the next twenty minutes.

"_Flack."_

"Don, we've got something up here."

"_Danny, as I said before I'm a bit busy here."_

"We found out the name of the suspect's father. He's a Richard Clark and he's got a hell of a lot of previous."

"_Really?" _There was a brief pause before Flack continued, _"Our guy said that his dad knew Mac…I'm not sure whether that was a complete lie but it might be worth checking out."_

"Okay, will do." Before Danny could end the conversation Hawkes appeared through the door,

"I think I've found a connection between these two and Mac," He said staring at Danny, "Mac was the one who helped put Richard Clark away for that eight year stretch…as well as working in most of the investigations carried out on him."

"Flack, I think we've found our motive…"

"_Great!"_

"The only thing is, if this is true then Mac might still be in danger."


	11. Chapter 11

Wow I am so sorry guys for this huge delay, my beta has told me that I can blame her but it's my fault as well inspiration was definitely lacking when I was trying to write this chapter. However, it's now up and hopefully you will like it and not blame me too much for taking so long in posting it.

Thanks to all those who have reviewed so far, you've all been wonderful.

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The darkness seemed to be lifting, more and more of his senses were beginning to kick in and for once his eyes didn't feel extraordinarily heavy. All around him he could hear strange sounds, the rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor and the soft footsteps of someone moving around the room. A warm hand clutched his own on the bed, the fingers slowly stroking his skin. Suddenly a voice broke the relative quiet and a face swam in his mind, he recognised that voice but he just couldn't place a name. He vaguely remembered waking up once before, although that could have just been a dream, but if it had been real then his brain felt slightly more normal than before. Now he could think straight without wondering why there was something like cotton wool in his brain.

"The Doctor says you're doing a lot better, he's pretty sure you're going to wake up soon. So that's your cue to make a miraculous recovery and jump up out of the bed." He tried to chuckle but something was once more obstructing his throat, he couldn't help the panic that rose inside him. Suddenly his trachea was working against him and he began to choke, his eyes flew open as he tried desperately to breathe.

The woman sat next to him practically jumped a few feet into the air at his sudden bout of wakefulness and soon she was screaming for the nurse, who had obviously left just a few seconds before, to get back in here. Green eyes were desperately trying to take in his surroundings but his brain was too busy trying to get him to breathe to allow him to focus on small details. Suddenly three more people burst into the room one was wearing a white coat, and Mac instantly guessed that he was a doctor. The three crowded around him, one of the nurses gently pulling the female who had sat next to him away, and soon they were telling him to relax. How the hell was he meant to relax? He couldn't breathe! Maybe if he died then they'd feel a bit better, afterall then he'd be 'relaxed' wouldn't he.

Mac tried to convey this thought to the doctor standing over him; however his glare seemed to barely register with the male as his hands flew down and began to work at the tube down his throat.

"Just remain calm Mr Taylor." Another glare, weaker this time, was shot at the doctor before he felt the tube begin to be pulled out his throat. He fought hard not to retch at the sensation, it was truly one of the most uncomfortable experiences of his life, but with every inch that was taken out it was becoming easier to breathe once more. Finally the whole tube was taken out of his throat, and he sucked in a huge lungful of air…brilliant, clean, hospital ventilated air.

"Welcome back Mr Taylor." The doctor was smiling down at him now, but Mac couldn't amount the energy to smile back or even to glare. All he wanted to do now was to go back to sleep. Almost as if he'd read his thoughts the doctor shook his head before speaking,

"I'm afraid now that you're awake I need to run a few quick tests, you've been unconscious and on a ventilator for quite some time so we can't take any chances." If his throat wasn't so sore he would have groaned, instead he settled for rolling his eyes which earned a chuckle from his physician. If this was how the guy was going to behave all the time then Mac felt he may actually end up killing the guy, he couldn't deal with 'happy' doctors they made him feel like a child and were often way too patronising for their own good.

"Miss Bonasera, if you wouldn't mind waiting outside for a few moments." The name rang a bell in Mac's head, but every time the information began to appear in his mind it flew away before he could catch it. She meant something to him, he knew that much, but he couldn't really remember much after that.

"Sure, I'll be right outside Mac, okay?" His head turned to look at her still not quite knowing who she was, but he managed a small smile to reassure her that he was fine. He may not know who she was yet, but something in the back of his mind was calling out to her and he'd always made a point of listening to his head.

XXXXXXXXX

Stella couldn't quite believe it, Mac was awake. After what seemed like years of not knowing if he was ever going to regain consciousness his eyes jerk open, and he's back with them. She was hard pressed not to burst into tears right now, but this time her tears would be out of joy and not fear or grief. Hell she could feel a grin beginning at the corners of her mouth, and she knew that soon she'd look like a Cheshire cat, however right now she didn't care because at least her friend was improving!

When the doctor had asked her to leave she'd headed out towards the front of the hospital, she had to ring the others and let them know that Mac was now awake. Also she wanted to let Lindsay know that Mac was okay, and that so far he didn't seem to have suffered from the close call earlier. She hadn't heard anything from Lindsay since she'd relieved her of the duty of watching over their friend earlier this morning, and it was now almost six in the evening. She pulled her cell out of her pocket and switched it on, waiting for a few seconds for it to get signal before she dialled Lindsay's number. With every ring Stella couldn't help the worry begin to build up inside her, she just wanted to know that the female was all right and wasn't blaming herself too much for the incident. She couldn't have known what was going to happen, none of them had psychic powers that they could call upon to protect Mac. All that mattered was that they managed to stick together and help him through this, because nothing was more important then him making a full recovery.

Finally a shaky voice answered the call and Stella couldn't stop the sigh of relief escaping her lips,

"Hey Lindsay, are you okay?" She didn't want to launch straight in with the good news, first of all she wanted to assess how her co-worker was faring so far.

"_I'm…okay, thanks Stella. Has something happened? Oh my God there's something wrong with Mac, isn't there? Oh no, it's all my fault I should never have left him, if I'd just stayed there then that bastard would never have gotten near him and then…"_

"Lindsay, whoa slow down," She had to interrupt her friend, knowing that if this talk continued then the female would just end up spiralling into depression and blame. "Mac just woke up; the doctor's running a few checks on him now." She hid the fact that she was pretty sure he hadn't recognised her mainly because she didn't want to acknowledge the thought that he might have sustained brain damage. She didn't think she could cope if he didn't know who she was, he was her best friend and there was no way she could deal with losing _her_ Mac.

_"What? He's awake?"_

"Yep."

_"Oh thank God."_ Those three words held so much meaning, they'd all been sat here waiting and wondering about whether or not they'd see their friend move again. Stella had even allowed herself times when she was planning what to say in a eulogy. Yes, she hated thinking like that mainly because it scared her to think of losing him but by allowing those thoughts to appear in your mind then you were mentally preparing yourself for the worst case scenario therefore when something like this happened it made it all the sweeter.

XXXXXXXXX

Flack felt his heart sink rapidly at Danny's revelation, sure they'd found out their suspect's father's name but if this meant that he was out there and looking to get rid of Mac once and for all then that just made their job a hell of a lot harder. They needed to find out more about this guy and what his dad was planning to do. Finally he hung up on Danny and looked towards the door to the interview room, which he had closed behind him when he'd exited the room in order to take the call. Angell was still talking to the guy and if she couldn't get him to break then they were in serious trouble, honestly she was one hell of a ball breaker! He'd hate to ever be in a situation where she was interrogating him…well…

He shook his head trying to rid himself of unprofessional images and thoughts; he had to concentrate on finding Richard Clark before he got to Mac. Slowly he put his cell back in his pocket and moved towards the door, his hand closed upon the handle and soon he was back inside the interview room.

"For the benefit of the tape Detective Flack has re-entered the room." Angell's voice cut through the tense atmosphere in the room, and Flack's eyes fell immediately on the male sat at the table. He was sweating more than ever now and he was visibly shaking, he was most definitely not used to being questioned by the police. Jennifer seemed to be doing a good job on him so far, no doubt she was slightly annoyed that he was now able to spoil her fun.

Don took his seat and stared at their suspect for a few seconds before speaking,

"We just found out who your father is, therefore it's only a matter of time before we find out exactly who you are. You aren't doing yourself any favours by keeping quiet, because once we confirm your identity and your involvement in the murder of Joshua Hopkinson then things are going to go very bad for you very quickly. If you tell us the truth now then we can try and help you, but if you don't then have fun in jail with Mr Rice as your cell mate." The boy actually squeaked and Don fought hard to keep a smile from sliding onto his face. This was something he didn't like to admit to, the fact that he actually enjoyed tormenting suspects in the interview room. He always found it much more entertaining when he could break them, it was when they decided to play 'Mr Tough Guy' that things annoyed him and he often wanted to break objects…or people. Thankfully he had always been able to contain these feelings, after all it wouldn't do to turn into the Hulk during an interview and get sent down for assault or something like that.

"Look…I can't…t-t-tell you, if I do m-my Dad'll kill me…I d-don't want him to b-be disappointed in m-me ag-again." Oh great, yet another sob story and one that Flack could really do without. He hated it when villains tried to pull a fast one by throwing out a story about how their parents neglected them, or how their dog died when they were only 10 which left them without a companion and therefore no one to give them love and affection. Honestly, if he could turn into a decent human being with a family like his then, hell, anyone could! The only times stories like these worked on him were when an attractive woman, who also didn't happen to be in an interview room at the police station, told them to him.

"Kid, I really don't care what story you've got planned to tell us, okay? All I want to know is why you were in the hospital room of an NYPD CSI." The male's eyes flew to his, desperately searching for some scrap of sympathy but finding none.

"You don't u-understand!" He wailed after a few seconds of silence, the boy's hands slamming down on the table with more force than Flack had reckoned the guy could muster. Don was instantly on the alert, it was at times like these when interviews turned sour and the suspects could turn violent. He wasn't about to be caught out by some little punk who thought that he had to impress daddy all the way through his adult life.

"Why don't you explain it to us then?" Angell's voice was cool and calm and Flack glanced over at her wondering when she'd decided to become an almost 'mothering' figure to the suspect. Sure, he knew that sometimes females liked to take little saps under their wing but this was Jennifer…she didn't do that. It must be a tactic she had planned, of course. Gain his trust and then he'd tell her everything…well almost everything…hopefully.

"I-I…what?" The question seemed to have wrong-footed the male, and he blinked slowly at Angell for a few more seconds before he spoke again. "Oh…um…okay." Flack leant back in his chair once more, his arms tightly folded across his chest as he watched the male wondering how long this story was going to take.

"You said you know who my dad is, well you'll also k-know that he's one of the w-worst men in New York…at least according to the p-police. When I was little h-he always used to go on about the b-big busts he was p-planning and then when he got b-back from the job he'd talk to me about how one d-day I'd be just like him." As the kid spoke his voice was growing in confidence and also in anger, it seemed that he wasn't as fond of his dad as he had been when he was younger. "When I was thirteen my dad was caught and sent to jail. I had to w-watch his trial and I s-saw that bastard give evidence against him, I saw Detective Mac Taylor help to put my dad into a dark, dank, disgusting jail for eight years!" The suspect took a deep breath, trying to regain his composure. Deep down Flack couldn't help feeling a small amount of sympathy for him, after all it couldn't have been easy not having a dad around for your teenage years especially someone you idolised.

"I vowed that one day I'd be just like my dad, but my mom refused to even let me say his name in the house. For eight years I wasn't allowed to look at pictures or talk about him in front of my mom or family, I only managed to visit him in prison about once a year and I got to watch him waste away. The only thing keeping him going in there was his hatred of you lot. When I turned eighteen I was able to move away from home, and I started to see my dad more often and we started to talk about what to do when he got out. We devised a plan to…" Suddenly he stopped his hands over his mouth as he realised what he was saying. He'd already let slip enough to show his motive for being in Mac's hospital room, but he was also incriminating his father in the process.

"You might as well keep going, if you tell us everything we can try to help." Angell's calm voice once more dispelled the tension in the room, and the male seemed to relax slightly as he lowered his hands and began to speak once more.

"Oh God…we devised a plan to get at Mac Taylor, my dad wanted revenge on that bastard and I was happy to go along with his plan. After all he put my dad in jail and I wanted him to pay for what he'd done to my family!" Anger was once more beginning to boil up within Flack, but he managed to control it refusing to let it overwhelm him just yet, he needed to know the whole story before his emotions could get involved.

"When my dad got out we got together with some of his old friends and instead of letting me help with the job…he gave it to Rice. I begged to be allowed to help or even do it on my own, but my dad didn't trust me…so when Rice went out I followed him. He wasn't exactly happy about me tagging along but I had a gun and I wasn't going to let him throw me out of this job, not when it was personal." Slowly Flack could see the scene unravelling before his very eyes; this meant that this guy had been one of Mac's attackers.

"We followed him when he was going on one of his late night runs through Manhattan, Rice had been tracking him for a few days and so he knew the exact route he would take. We planned to get him when he started down an alley; Frank said that the alley was normally deserted so when Taylor got to it we jumped him. The only thing my dad had forgotten to mention was that Taylor had been a marine. Frank decided to tell me just before we reached him. He managed to hold me off with little effort but Frank waded in and knocked him down with several punches, but before we could finish the job this voice sounded from behind us. This kid, about my age, was running towards us from the entrance to this club. Me and Rice ran out of there leaving that guy to pick up Taylor…but I didn't want to risk the newcomer going to the police." Flack's eyebrows were once more disappearing into his hairline; he couldn't quite believe how much the kid was giving away and what he was admitting to. This was assault, possession of a fire arm…and who knew what he was going to fess up to next.

"When Taylor left we headed back to the club and the guy we were waiting for was just leaving, we followed him for a bit before we jumped him too."

"What time was this?" Flack asked, watching the male before him closely.

"I dunno, about 4am. He went down really easily, and before I knew what had happened…Frank had killed him. I just wanted to rough him up a bit, you know, let him know what would happen if he went to the police over what he saw…but Frank took it too far. I was gunna go call help, but then he dragged me off and we headed to Taylor's flat. We got there about 4:30 maybe quarter to and I managed to get through the window. I helped Frank through…and then Taylor came barrelling into the living room with a gun in his hand. I pulled mine out but Frank was already on him…it didn't take long for the bastard to go down. Before Frank could actually get him on the floor the idiot managed to get Frank. But Rice had a knife and he sliced the guy right across his chest, you should have heard the cry from that stupid marine. Then when he fell to his knees I smacked him across the face with my own gun, you can't imagine how good it felt! The only problem was he was able to get Rice's knife off him and managed to get him with it. Well, you know, self defence and all that, I just had to shoot him." Don was beginning to see red, everything around him was once more blurring and the only thing that was still in focus was the little piece of shit before him.

"When my dad found out that I'd gone with Frank and that Taylor was still alive he hit the roof, and sent me to finish the job. Only I couldn't because you got in the way, you with your stupid macho man attitude." Flack stood quickly, his chair falling over behind him as he grabbed the male by his lapels and pulled him closer. A low growl actually escaped his throat, and suddenly he felt hands on his shoulders pulling him backwards with surprising force. He allowed himself to be manoeuvred away from the suspect and out of the room, but his growling continued. It wasn't until he was stood outside the interview room with the door firmly closed that he took a deep breath.

"What the hell was that?" Jennifer asked, staring at him with obvious anger and annoyance.

"He did it! That little bastard did it, and he should not be able to be proud of himself…"

"For God's sake, Don, that's no reason for you to turn into some kind of caveman! What if you'd actually attacked him? What if I hadn't been able to stop you? We would have lost our case, and that would have been your fault. How do you think Mac would have felt about that?" Blue eyes stared at her anger now radiating from his own gaze, how dare she say something like that. One of his greatest friends was lying in hospital because of that stupid prick in custody, and she was lecturing him. Finally he spun around and walked away from her, heading to the exit and fresh air. He ignored her as she called after him; instead he began to jog to the front door his mind racing. After a few minutes he was outside and he took several deep calming breaths, trying to regain some form of normality. Now he was away from her he knew that Angell was right, if she hadn't been there he may have done something so much worse. Suddenly he felt his cell begin to vibrate; he pulled it out glancing at the caller I.D. before answering it.

"Flack."

_"Hey Don, I've got news on Mac."_

"Yeah?" He couldn't contain the fear that crept into his voice, he didn't know what he'd do if this was bad news.

_"He's awake; the doctor's just running some tests now and then I'll be able to go back in."_

"Wow, Stell, that's fantastic!" The relief they both felt was evident in their voices and all thoughts of their suspect flew from his mind for one brief, glorious second.

_"I know! But how's the interview going?"_ His mood darkened suddenly,

"We've got the right guys, but we need to find Richard Clark. Stell can you make sure you stay with Mac and don't leave him on his own?"

_"Sure, why what's wrong?"_

"We have a feeling that he may still be in danger until we find this Clark"

_"Okay, I won't leave him Don."_ With a small smile he said his 'goodbye' and ended the conversation. Now all they had to do was find Clark, and then he could finally share in the relief of having his friend awake. Slowly he turned and walked back into the building, he needed to get a team together so that they could catch this criminal and make New York that little bit safer.


	12. Chapter 12

Firstly I cannot apologise enough for the length of time it has taken me to update this story, all the Christmas and New Year's celebrations got on top of me, coupled with going back to school. Gr. Anyway hopefully I have my inspiration back and will be able to write more quickly. Thanks again to all of you who have stayed with this story, you're reviews mean so much to me, they make me so happy.

Also, I was watching Hustle last night and a character appeared with the name 'Frank Rice, so I just want to say that I DID NOT nick the name from Hustle, as you can see I posted this story and created this character before that particular episode aired. Just wanted to say that so that I don't get any Hustle fans shouting at me for having a character with the same name.

Anyway, on with the story.

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Mac couldn't quite understand what he was doing in this place, well okay he understood the fact that whenever he moved he could feel shooting pains across his chest and the one time he'd managed to look in a reflective surface he'd seen that he had wonderful purple bruises across his face, arms and stomach, but he didn't remember how he'd got these. Obviously it had been in a fight, but when, where and why? After a few hours of laying in his hospital bed his memory had started to return, little snippets at first until finally he began to remember bigger chunks. The best bit had been when he'd finally been able to put a name to the woman who had been at his bedside for the entire time he'd been awake, he couldn't quite believe that he'd forgotten who she was! Stella, his best friend, confidante and second in command. Once that bit of information had been secured in his brain she'd helped him piece together other parts of his short term memory and he could only thank whoever was listening that the head injury that he had obviously sustained wasn't too bad.

The doctors had been hurrying in and out of his room every so often, looking at his chart, checking his vitals before checking on the amount of drugs that were flowing through his system. He'd had morphine a few times in his life and every single one of those times he'd wanted to kiss the guy who'd invented it!

"Mac?" He glanced up at Stella, wondering why her voice was so quiet all of a sudden. As he looked at her she smiled softly, "I thought you'd gone back to sleep." At this comment he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow,

"Unfortunately going to sleep with my eyes open is a skill I haven't mastered yet." As his friend laughed he shot her a smile, before laying his head back down on the pillow and looking up at the white ceiling above him. Now that he was awake all he wanted to do was get out of here, he could do so much more from either his house or at work than he could stuck in here. However, as everyone who had visited him so far kept on saying 'the doctors know best', and they definitely were not going to let him go until they'd made sure that he wasn't suffering any side-effects and that the lovely, great bullet hole in his chest was healing nicely. Even when he was discharged he'd still have to stay off his feet for a few weeks…that was pretty much his idea of hell! He needed to run, jump; hell skipping would be okay if he could just leave.

"Stella, you should really go home and get some rest." He tried to sound authoritative but when you're lying in a hospital bed and look like a strange purple, blue and black fungi then for some reason you lose some of that authority over others. The female looked at him as though he'd gone slightly mad, before she lowered her eyes to look at her knees before speaking.

"Mac I'm staying here, okay. I almost lost you and you are not making me leave here until the doctors tell me that you can go home, and even then you know I'll be over everyday to make sure you're behaving yourself!" It was true, she'd probably end up tying him to his bed or sofa with a bit of food and water and leaving him there until whatever time she returned. But still there was something about her lowered gaze. She was keeping something from him.

"What aren't you telling me?" He asked, raising himself up on his elbows and ignoring the stab of pain that shot through his body at the movement. He'd dealt with worse injuries than this in his lifetime, so he wasn't about to let a little bullet wound get in the way of finding out what was troubling Stella. As he spoke she looked back up at him searching his eyes for something, he couldn't stand being kept in the dark about things and she, above all others, should know that by now.

"Nothing." Mac felt annoyance begin to bubble inside him, why the hell wasn't she telling him what was the matter? He was awake, alert and almost mobile so there was no reason for her to sit there and act dumb. Green eyes turned cold as he glared at her, a part of him felt that he was beginning to be a bit hard on her but he'd been out of the loop for several days and he was not about to let things slip past him now he was awake.

"Stella…" His voice was low and her name came out almost as a growl, he knew that this anger was slightly irrational but he couldn't help it.

"Mac, please it's nothing you need to worry about. You've just woken up!" If only he could make her see that he didn't need to be protected from things, he needed to be kept in the loop and not cut out of it just because he hadn't been awake.

"Just tell me Stella, I'll end up worrying more if you don't." He stared her down, waiting for that little sign in her eyes to tell him that she was giving in. There it was, just as she gave a small sigh, and scrubbed her face with her hands. He knew these gestures only too well, she was either exceptionally tired or this news was scaring her. If he had to hazard a guess he'd say it was a bit of both.

"Okay, fine. I might as well tell you everything. We've caught the two guys who attacked you, they're in custody right now but they also killed another man. He stopped them in the alleyway outside the club you went past…" His eyes widened, he remembered that kid! He'd come over, scared the two attackers off and helped him to his feet. Mac could remember telling him to be careful because there was a high probability that they'd come back for revenge…he'd hoped that he wasn't right.

"Mac?"

"I remember him…they killed him? What did they do? Wait until later when he came out and grabbed him?"

"Yeah. They ganged up on him and ended up killing him, that's when they headed to yours. Well, apparently they've got another man on the outside, and he's going to want to finish the job that they started. Flack is on his way to pick him up, but until I get a call saying they have him then I'm staying right here and nothing you say or do is going to get me to move." A small smile began to creep across his face, he'd always known that Stella was protective but he'd never seen the extent of it. He was pretty sure that if anyone tried to get through the door into this room she'd take them down no problem. Never step between Stella and something she wants or someone she's trying to protect, it's not a pretty sight if you get in the way.

Stella looked at him with a look of confusion on her face; she didn't quite understand why he was smiling so he shook his head slightly and lay back in his bed. Well no doubt Flack would have sent some uniformed officers over to the hospital to keep an eye on him and Stella, so he didn't feel any immediate danger…the only problem was he didn't know who was after him. He'd managed to send down quite a few big criminals in his time and he knew that he'd made a hell of a lot of enemies along the way. He could only hope that Flack found this man soon, because if he found his way here then there was little way he'd be able to put up a fight and he did not want Stella to have to deal with some raging murderer on her own.

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Don couldn't remember feeling more relieved then when he'd received the call from Stella telling him that Mac had woken up, he'd wanted to punch the air and scream loudly. However, he'd managed to contain these urges and had settled for hurrying up to the computers and running the name 'Richard Clark' through every database. His list of convictions ran on for several pages and it seemed like Mac had been able to help secure each one with DNA evidence, now that was definitely a motive. The more Don looked at this guy and his previous the more he was beginning to understand what motivated this guy, he wanted revenge. Nothing more, nothing less. Just a chance to get back at the man who put him in jail in the first place. The only thing Flack didn't understand was why he sent Rice after Mac instead of going after him himself, surely that would be the most satisfying way to handle it?

With a slight shake of his head the male reminded himself that he was not a criminal psychologist and it was not his job to go around discovering why the perps did these things. Nope, he was the brawn, the muscle, the tough guy who could wade into a scene bash a few heads together and look menacing in an interview. Well, okay, he was a bit more than that but still he liked thinking of himself as the tough guy, it occasionally led to quite amusing chats with his dad.

Finally he found what he was looking for, a last known address. There was no guarantee that Clark was still there, but it was a start and they really needed to catch the final link in the chain. He printed the address off and began to assemble a team; they had to get on the move now if they were going to keep Mac safe. Flack guessed that once Clark heard that his son and the hit man were in custody then either he'd try to flee the country or else try to finish the job himself.

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Danny was beginning to grow impatient; the car they were in was going too slow for his liking! Flack had got a team together to raid Clark's house and once the warrant had come through they'd begun to move off, Danny had tracked Flack down and convinced him to let him and Hawkes come along as well. Surely a few CSIs would be helpful, especially if they needed to gather any evidence if Clark had disappeared. Now they were stuck in the regular New York traffic, even with their sirens going no one seemed capable of moving out of the goddamn way! Blue eyes glanced across at Flack who looked just as agitated as he felt; they needed to get a good pace so that they kept on top of this case. They'd already done pretty well in getting two of the guys responsible now they just needed to catch the 'big fish'.

Finally, after what seemed like an age, the cars in front parted and they were able to get through, the driver narrowly missing a few side view mirrors. The siren was wailing and people were now scrambling to get out of the way of the police vehicles, now they were getting somewhere. The car sped through the city, having a few near misses with obnoxious cabbies who didn't really want to move over for a cop. However, eventually they reached Clark's home and they all piled out of the two police vans. Flack took charge and began directing his men round the back of the small house, once he was sure that his guys had the back door covered so no one could make a quick exit, Don signalled that the rest of them could move in. Danny glanced over at Sheldon who nodded once at him, they both drew their own guns and followed Don up the steps of the porch in time to see Flack banging on the door.

"Mr Clark? This is the NYPD, open up." There was silence, Flack knocked again his gun at the ready in case someone came flying out.

"This is the NYPD open up!" The statement was repeated but still met with silence; finally his friend turned to the uniformed officers and motioned for them to smash the door down. Danny had to admit that he did love this part of the job! What self-respecting guy didn't love it when things got smashed, or they were able to get involved in high speed chases?! Honestly, this job could often be his idea of heaven…but it also could be his own personal hell.

Two officers hurried up the steps and managed to open the door very quickly, once they were clear they all began to walk into the house. Their guns drawn, all expecting someone to charge at them at any moment. Danny walked down the narrow hallway until he reached a door into what looked like the living room, with his gun at the ready he stepped inside, scanning the area with his eyes and his gun. There was no one in here…but there was something else. It looked as if someone had decided to take out their stress on the furniture; there were deep rips in the fabric of the sofa and armchair which looked like they'd been made by a knife. As he walked further into the room Danny could see that it wasn't only the furniture that had been attacked, he bent down and looked at the small droplets of blood on the linoleum floor, he spun around on the balls of his feet looking for the exact spot where this attack had taken place. He couldn't see a high velocity spatter anywhere in this room, slowly he stood up and headed towards another door at the other end of the lounge.

His gun rose once more as he reached the door to the kitchen, he pushed it open slowly scanning the area quickly and immediately came to the realisation that this was a preliminary crime scene. There was blood all along the wall to his right, parts of it had dried on the paintwork but the odd droplet was making its way down towards the floor, allowing gravity to take its toll.

"Flack!" His voice was loud, there was no body in this room but if one person had lost that much blood then they definitely needed medical attention soon or else they'd been stone cold in a matter of minutes. All around him he could hear the pounding of feet as the police officers hurried towards his position, within a few seconds the two doors into the kitchen burst open and Flack hurried in flanked by a couple of the armed officers.

"What's up…oh." It seemed that his friend had just noticed the blood stains up the wall, and his eyes widened as he took it all in. "Wow, that guy won't be doing too well." Danny shook his head silently, before stepping a bit closer to the wall. He needed to take a sample, dust for prints, process the crime scene. If they could find out whose blood this was then…well he wasn't sure how that would help Mac but if Clark had done this then it would put him away for a hell of a lot longer.

Suddenly another call came from one of the rooms upstairs, Danny and Don turned in unison to look out of the door before they both hurried towards the voice. The shout had come from one of the family bedrooms, they entered slowly glancing at one another wondering what the officer had found. They saw the male stood before a 13'' plasma screen television, the remote clutched in his hand and the D.V.D displayed on the screen was currently paused.

"What's that?" Danny watched as Don walked towards the television, his head tilting to one side as he looked at the screen.

"I think you'd better watch it, sir." Danny stepped forwards as the officer pressed play, he couldn't stop himself copying Flack's head movement as the static cleared and an image appeared on the screen. This seemed to be a film of an attack, in particular the attack that must have happened downstairs. They could see a very pale male strapped to a chair, white tape covering his mouth and flanked by two extremely large men. A voice could be heard by someone just off camera,

_"You failed me."_ The man in the chair shook his head fervently, trying to plead with the male who was holding him captive. His silent pleading didn't seem to do much good, instead the voice spoke once more and a figure moved towards the man in the chair, his back to the camera.

_"Now you've put me in a difficult situation, because I asked you to do one thing, to keep an eye on my son, make sure he didn't get into any trouble, and you failed."_ He signalled for one of the goons to grab hold of the man's shoulders, fear was evident in the poor guy's eyes as he stared up at the man that Danny could only assume was Clark. The figure walked closer to the male, obscuring him from view but his screams resounded the bedroom, Danny winced inwardly as the shrieks slowly grew weaker. The camera caught the blood spatter perfectly, the vic had been pushed backwards on his chair causing it to end up standing on two legs before a blade had been brought down somewhere on his body.

"Okay, that's enough." Flack said, tearing his eyes away from the screen as the attacker walked backwards from his victim, he wasn't about to show them his face. Danny shot him a look, wondering what to do next. They needed to find Clark quickly, if they left it too long and he found out they were on to him then he could easily flee the country.

"We should process the scene." Danny stated finally, putting his gun back in its holster and moving towards the door. Before he could exit the room another shout rang out from the study down the hall, he jogged up to the door with Flack hot on his heels. As he entered his eyes immediately fell upon a computer, its screen was lit up and an officer was stood beside it. Danny stepped forwards searching the screen, there seemed to be some kind of diagram on it. He raised an eyebrow at it, wondering what the hell it was. Behind him he could practically sense Don near him before he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he was pushed slightly aside so that his friend could get closer to the screen.

"Was it like this when you came in?" Flack asked the police officer brusquely, if this was right then they may have found an important bit of evidence.

"Yes, sir." The two males studied the officer's face, he didn't seem to be lying, in fact he seemed to be genuinely excited that he'd managed to find something of significance. Danny turned his attention from the officer before him to the computer, it looked like a map to somewhere. There were few road names on it, but for some reason he felt like he'd seen it before.

"Doesn't that place look familiar to you?" Don asked, squinting at the diagram on the computer as if trying to think where he'd seen a place like this before.

"I'm not sure, it kinda does…" He trailed off, staring at the screen. It had to be a map, it had to be a route he wanted to take to get something…or someone.

"The hospital." Danny said, his eyes meeting Flack's for a brief second before both ran to door, hurried down the stairs and out of the house calling to a few of the officers to come with them. They had to get to the hospital right now, if Clark was going there to finish the job his son tried to start then Stella could be in trouble as well as Mac.

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Stella yawned widely, a hand rose and scrubbed her face before she turned to look at her sleeping friend. Mac had fallen asleep a few hours ago, thankfully, after he'd hounded her for information on the case so far. She'd done her best to try and keep him out of it, but it hadn't worked so well. He could be extremely persuasive, and annoying, at times. It was best just to tell him everything and have done with it.

Her hand rested on his for a few seconds, gently stroking it before she got up and began pacing the small room. She didn't want to leave, not until she had confirmation that Clark had been captured and was being tortured…uh well interrogated… by Flack and his boys. However, she did need exercise as well as coffee. Yes, coffee sounded like a very good idea. She walked towards the door, and glanced outside just as a young nurse was passing by.

"Excuse me, would you be able to get me a cup of coffee? Sorry, I'm not supposed to be leaving him on his own." The nurse shot her a small smile before nodding and hurrying off to get Stella her little cup of heaven. With that done she turned back to Mac, a smile appearing on her own lips as she watched his chest rise up and down. She couldn't believe how close they'd come to losing him. Slowly she moved back to her seat beside his bed and took his hand in hers, she didn't know what she would do without him. He was her rock when everything around her was washing away he was the one that got her through the tempest.

She was desperately tired, with a slight sigh she lent forwards, resting her head on his bed and closed her eyes. Within a matter of seconds she was asleep.

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Thanks to my beta reader, 'cause she is amazing. We had the best discussion about the 'map', anyway thanks for reading. You know you want to review it :)


	13. Chapter 13

Wayhey chapter 13 is up, I'm trying to get better at posting quickly although now I've said that it'll probably go downhill again. Hopefully, though, because we've had a hell of a lot of snow here I'll be more inclined to write the next few chapters over the weekend and next week. No promises though. Thanks again to my beta and to all of you who reviewed the last chapter, I love reading your reviews, they help me to continue this story =)

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How does the old saying go? Revenge is best served cold. Richard Clark didn't really believe that, he preferred it to be served piping hot with a good side order of violence. You couldn't teach someone a lesson if you didn't rough them up a bit, you had to make them understand that you were right and they were wrong. Why on earth he'd sent a boy to do a man's job he would never know, it must have been a momentary lapse of judgement. He needed to settle this score with Detective Taylor once and for all; he wasn't going to let him get away with putting him in prison for so long that he'd missed pretty much every important part of his son's life. His wife had given up on him whilst he was inside, met some new guy with a steady job and a flash car. How could she?

The black jeep hurried down the streets towards the hospital where his 'nemesis' was lying, all broken and bleeding according to Rice. Richard had already guessed that there would be some sort of armed escort surrounding Mr. Taylor but he wasn't about to allow that to stop him. From what he'd been able to gather from his informants this particular CSI meant a lot to the NYPD, he was almost seen as invaluable, so if he could take him out of the picture then he'd be able to harm the entire police force in New York. A grin of satisfaction crossed his face as he saw the turning for the hospital, he turned the wheel slowly, adrenaline beginning to pump around his system. It was time to put his plan into action.

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Flack's foot was practically pushed against the floor as he willed the car to go faster, it seemed that this bloody police car didn't like travelling very fast even if the driver's foot was in danger of going through the floor! Danny was sat next to him and he could feel the tension rolling off the other male in waves, they both wanted, no, needed to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. Neither of them had been able to get through to Stella, mainly because her phone was turned off as was only correct when you were in a hospital. They'd tried Lindsay and Hawkes straight after but neither had picked up their damn phones.

"I'm going to try Lindsay again." Flack nodded as Danny spoke, hoping that the female would actually pick up this time. Now was not the time to be ignoring calls from Danny just because she thought it was her fault that that guy had been able to enter Mac's room. A car swerved in front of them as they entered Manhattan and Don slammed his hand on the horn, in normal circumstances a rude gesture towards the other driver would have sufficed but today noise seemed to be needed.

"Lindsay, thank God!" He practically jumped at Danny's voice, he glanced quickly over at his friend seeing relief spreading across the male's face and he felt a small amount of his terror fading. At least they could pass on their information to someone else who could probably get to the hospital a lot quicker then they could.

"Look, Clark wasn't at his house we think he's gone to the hospital to find Mac… Yes, we're about fifteen minutes away which is too long! Can you get down there?" Flack wished he could hear what was going on, on the other end of the phone he hated being out of the loop even for something as small as a telephone call. Honestly, he was one of those guys that liked to hear the gossip going around the station, he didn't always believe it but he still liked to know what was going on.

"Okay, please hurry Lindsay. And get Hawkes too, I don't want you going there on your own." He couldn't stop the slight smirk appearing on his lips, he'd never known Danny was so nice to other people. But then again he and Lindsay were dating…weren't they? Oh who knew, they seemed to be on and off every other week. He'd pretty much given up trying to suss out their relationship, instead he would just tease both of them about it as much as possible.

"She's on her way there now." Danny told him as he put his cell back in his pocket; Flack gave a short nod the smirk disappearing from his face as quickly as it had appeared. Now that they had others on the job it was beginning to sink in how much danger Mac was in right now, if Clark managed to get through the guard he'd placed in the hospital then he could get to the CSI and kill him easily. Mac couldn't defend himself; he'd only just woken up! What about Stella?! Oh God, if he hurt her he would purposely tear him limb from limb!

"Now all we've got to do is get there too." Don could feel his adrenaline begin to pump around his body, he needed to get there right now and take this guy down by any means necessary.

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Stella woke suddenly, her eyes snapping open and her neck aching terribly. Slowly she manoeuvred herself upright, rubbing her neck as she sat up and silently berating herself for falling asleep on the job. She'd promised herself that she'd stay awake all the time she was at Mac's bedside and what did she do after asking for coffee? Fall asleep; honestly she should have had some caffeine beforehand. At the thought of coffee she glanced around the room, wondering how long she'd been asleep and spotting a cup of coffee on the small table beside Mac's bed. A small smile crossed her lips as she reached out for the cup; she brought it up to her lips and took a sip before grimacing. She obviously had been asleep for quite a while because that drink was now cold, nothing like the nice warm beverage she loved so much.

Slowly she placed it back on the table and looked at her friend, his eyes were closed and his breathing was regular which was definitely a relief. She was no longer watching him with the fear that he may not wake up because she knew that he was going to get better, the doctors had told her that so far everything looked good. He was on the road to recovery as long as he behaved himself and didn't go doing anything stupid, such as returning to work too quickly once he was discharged from hospital. Although knowing Mac he'd probably randomly appear at the crime lab a day or two after being sent home, limping around and trying to be involved in the cases they were working on. If he did do that then she would personally escort him home and make sure that he did not move from his house for as long as it took his injuries to heal properly. She didn't care if he used to be a marine, she would not allow her friend to do himself greater harm by acting all macho. Honestly what was wrong with men? They always had to try and prove themselves.

With a sigh she rolled her shoulders backwards trying to alleviate the stiffness that had developed in them when she'd gone to sleep; once this was done she rubbed her eyes to get rid of the tiredness that was clinging to her. Finally she got to her feet, deciding that exercise would help her to wake up more than sitting in a plastic chair. As she began walking around Mac's room she began to wonder how long before Flack and his boys caught this Clark guy, once he was safe behind bars the she could breathe a sigh of relief. Until then she was forced to continue to worry about every person who tried to enter his room.

Suddenly she heard footsteps coming down the corridor; she hurried to the door hoping it was another extremely kind nurse who might be able to get her a warm drink. Instead of a nurse she was greeted by someone who seemed to be a doctor, but she didn't recognise him for some reason, maybe he'd been one of the doctors who'd seen to Mac when Flack or one of the others had been here to look after Mac.

The doctor entered the room slowly shooting her a small smile before he walked over towards Mac's chart, Stella watched him with a suspicion that she couldn't help feeling. She didn't like it when people she didn't know entered the room, but she could see his little card pinned to his coat.

"Excuse me but are you one of his doctors?" She asked, moving forwards to stand next to him.

"Yes I am, but I don't think we've met. My name is Doctor Salmon; I believe I was here when a Detective Flack was in the room." She nodded slowly at his answer, feeling slightly relieved that he'd been here before and that he didn't seem to be lying. Honestly she hadn't realised just how protective she was of people, Mac especially.

"Oh, okay. Sorry, just a bit overprotective at the moment." He gave her another smile before looking at Mac's chart,

"It's only natural, Miss Bonesera." She was about to smile back at him when it suddenly hit her, she hadn't told him her name. She hadn't told him anything about her, and she doubted that anyone else would have mentioned her to any doctors.

"Um, how do you know my name?" The doctor barely looked up from the chart he was holding, but she did notice a muscle tense in his jaw. This was not good.

"Okay, can you leave please?" She moved closer to him, trying to appear threatening without actually resorting to violence, that wouldn't be a very helpful thing to do right now. If she could get him out of the room then she could wait until she found a doctor she recognised.

"I don't think so." Suddenly he rounded on her, his eyes burning into hers and before she knew it he pulled a gun out of his white coat. Oh shit, this was not good. She stood her ground for a few seconds before she decided to act, she wasn't going to let him threaten her like this. With this decided she landed a good punch in his stomach, causing him to double over as she winded him. Then she secured a good right hook to his face, she felt something crack as her knuckles hit his nose and she allowed herself a small smile. God how she liked showing men that she wasn't some weak little girl, especially when they thought they were going to hurt one of her friends. Breaking his nose was only the beginning of what she had planned for him. However, he wasn't so easy to take down, before she'd even realised what was happening he was barrelling towards her and managed to knock her down. Her head cracked on the hard hospital room floor and stars exploded in front of her eyes. In her dazed state she was pretty much unable to defend herself and she saw a dark object heading towards her face. A sharp pain exploded in her forehead as it hit her and then she was swallowed up by the darkness.

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They were only two minutes away! So near and yet so damn far! Flack slammed his hand on the horn once more, trying to get the cars in front of him to move for the blue flashing lights but no, they all seemed desperate to remain stationary.

"Move!" He shouted, knowing that the drivers wouldn't be able to hear him but feeling better that he was able to scream and shout at everything and anything. Finally a gap appeared in front of him and he began to move the car forwards, praying that he didn't hit any cars just yet. He didn't mind if he hit any when he got to the hospital but he could not afford to lose any precious time at the moment.

"We're gunna get there in time." Danny had been repeating this from about the time he'd put the phone down on Lindsay, he seemed to be trying to convince himself of this fact but he was doing little to make Flack believe it.

Finally they were two blocks away from their destination and Don felt his foot gaining a life of its own as it pressed down harder on the accelerator. They had to get there in time, they just had to!


	14. Chapter 14

Sorry for the delay guys, fanfiction decided not to let me sign in! Grrr, I was not a happy bunny. But anyway now the next chapter is up, so I hope you enjoy =)

Thanks to all of you who have reviewed so far, you're all fantastic and you're making writing this story extremely enjoyable!

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It seemed like it had been years since he'd had a decent sleep, sure he'd been unconscious for the past day or two but that didn't really count as rest. There had been so many times during his life when he'd been unable to sleep, his insomnia was something that he'd had to live with all his life but that didn't mean that it wasn't annoying. He hated having to go for runs at night to force his brain to work out any problems that were worrying him before he could go to bed and actually fall asleep. However, since he'd been in the hospital he'd seemed to do nothing but sleep or want to sleep.

Suddenly Mac could feel the veil of sleep beginning to lift from him, something was happening in the room but he couldn't quite figure out what it was. There was noise. Loud noise. Someone talking, no, people talking. He wanted to open his eyes and see what was going on but he was still in that state between wakefulness and sleep when you are still not in complete control of your actions. He could hear someone coming nearer, the intruder was breathing heavily as if they'd just been in a struggle. This couldn't be a doctor, could it? Wasn't Stella supposed to be here?

Finally he managed to open his mouth, his eyelids still too heavy to lift. He needed to know where Stella was. He was pretty sure that the person standing near him at the moment wasn't her, normally he could smell her perfume or she'd be talking to him, this person was just standing there, watching him. It was unnerving knowing that someone was there but being unable to look at them.

"S-Stella?" Was that really his voice? It sounded so much weaker than it had a few hours ago. He heard the intruder shift and then he felt someone sitting down on the edge of his bed, oh God. This wasn't good.

"Sorry Detective, she had to…uhr…lie down for a minute." At this Mac began to struggle harder with the sleep that was clutching at him, after a few seconds he managed to prise his eyes open and blinked at the male sat on his bed. He was wearing the white coat of a doctor but Mac could see a gun clutched in his hand, the end of it had blood dripping onto the crisp white sheets.

"What have you done to her?" His voice was no stronger than it had been before, but this time anger was clear in his tone. This man had hurt Stella; he had to have done why else would she not be here? She'd told him that she wasn't going to leave him.

"Now, now Detective. Let's not discuss Miss Bonesera now, there's someone outside who'd like to speak to you." With that he got up and moved to the door, motioning someone stood in the corridor to come inside. As a second male entered the room Mac blanched, he recognised that guy! Richard Clark. He'd sent him down years ago; he could still remember the threat that had been shouted at him across the courthouse. Now it seemed that Clark was trying to fulfil his promise. As quickly as he could Mac tried to throw back the covers and get out of his bed, but before he'd even managed to sit up pain shot through him once more and he was hard pressed not to yell out. The man in the white coat was at his side in an instant pushing him back down roughly and keeping his hands on his shoulders, preventing him from getting back up. Not that Mac didn't try; he continued to struggle against the other man's grip trying to ignore the increasing pain in his stomach.

"Mr Taylor, what a pleasure it is to see you once again." Mac couldn't see Clark anymore but he could hear him pacing at the end of his bed, "Gag him." Suddenly something was being shoved into his mouth and he began to struggle even harder, he was not going to let these people do this to him! He was not going to be killed in a damn hospital!

"Now, now Detective if you're not careful you'll rip out your stitches." Right now Mac didn't care if he ripped every single last one of them out, as long as he got free he didn't mind. Pain was flaring through his body but he tried to push it to the side of his mind, he did not need to think about it right now instead he should focus on figuring out how the hell he was meant to get out of this one. As he listened for Clark's footsteps he was surprised to find they'd stopped.

"I thought I said no unnecessary violence, Nick. Did you really have to do that to the girl? Blood really doesn't suit her." At the mention of blood Mac's eyes widened, had this Nick person hit Stella with the gun? Was that why there was blood on the gun? Was she all right? He tried to lift his head up desperate to see Stella but Nick shoved his head back onto the pillow. The footsteps started once more and then Clark's face appeared above his own, those cold grey eyes staring down into his. Mac could see the malice stirring in those grey orbs and he couldn't help the small stab of panic that began to stir in his stomach.

"Now, Mr Taylor. I've had enough of games, both Rice and my son have failed to kill you but I assure you I won't." Mac's eyes narrowed at the male above him, he was not going to be killed like this! He wanted his death to be peaceful many years from now, when he was old and grey. Clark gave a nod to Nick and Mac tensed, wondering if he was going to be released for a split second whilst they tried to kill him. However, his plan to try and get at them when Nick let go was destroyed when he felt a hand pressing onto the wound on his abdomen. He let out a scream which was muffled against the cloth that was pressed into his mouth. The pain was causing his vision to begin to darken, the edges were blurring and he was finding it difficult to think straight. A grin appeared on Clark's face and Mac could feel his hatred for the man boiling inside him, he was not going to let this man turn him into a screaming wreck.

He felt Nick's hands begin to loosen their hold on his shoulders and trying to push the pain out of his mind he surged upwards pushing Nick away from him and managing to land a relatively weak punch on Clark's face. The two men stumbled backwards slightly taken aback that he'd been able to move, but Mac was not about to sit around whilst people tried to kill him. Somehow he found the strength to get out of his bed and take on a fighting stance, staring at the two males in his room. His legs were shaking, his breathing ragged but right now he didn't care, as long as he managed to stand upright until help came then everything would be good.

"Ah, he's a fighter. Fantastic." Clark gave a sharp gesture and suddenly Nick was practically jumping over the bed towards Mac, green eyes widened as 190 pounds of enraged, gun carrying, fake doctor came leaping towards him. The male landed on him, pushing him down to the floor and causing fresh pain to explode within him. It really couldn't do for an injured man to go around fighting with able-bodied males. What would Stella say? Stella. His mind turned to his friend and he no longer cared what pain he was in, all he wanted to do was inflict as much damage as he could on these people. They had hurt Stella!

A punch managed to connect with Nick's face and somehow he managed to push the male off him, breathing was becoming more difficult but he needed to get through this. Another punch to the male's jaw followed by a swift kick to his abdomen as he fell to the floor. Mac couldn't help the small smirk of satisfaction that crossed his face as his attacker hit the ground with a wonderful cracking sound; however this tiny moment of triumph was soon eclipsed by another bout of pain as he pushed himself upright. He really shouldn't be doing this, he wasn't even meant to be mobile yet and here he was trying to fight off two men who were here to kill him.

As Mac stood he could feel his legs shaking uncontrollably, he reached out and clung to the bed for support in order to remain upright. Clark was staring at him, a cold smile appearing on his lips as he watched the injured CSI try to remain in a standing position.

"I've waited a long time for this, Detective Taylor. Seeing as you can't stand up anymore, I'd be rude if I didn't let you lie down." In a flash Clark was at his side and a punch landed on his jaw, Mac reeled backwards and his legs collapsed underneath him. Stars were beginning to flash in front of his eyes and he began to realise how stupid he was being for trying to fight back, honestly how on earth did he expect to defend himself when he was in this state?

He felt a hand grab his hair and begin to pull his head backwards; he was being forced to look up at Clark no doubt whilst the other man tried to kill him. This couldn't happen! Not now. Something cold was pressing against his neck, the stars were beginning to clear from his vision and he was greeted by Clark's face swimming before his eyes. He could only guess that a gun was being thrust against his throat.

"Oh this is going to feel great." An evil, sadistic grin spread across his attackers face as his finger tightened on the trigger.

XXXXXXXXX

The car skidded round the corner before practically flying into the hospital car park, within seconds Flack had parked haphazardly in the middle of it and switched off the ignition. Right now he didn't care if he got tickets for bad parking, all that mattered was them getting to Mac before anything happened to him. If that bastard hurt Mac then he would never forgive himself!

He flung open his door and ran outside; slamming it behind him, before pelting towards the front entrance Danny hot on his heels. Once inside Flack continued jogging up the familiar hallways, he'd been here so many times in the past couple of days that he knew the way to Mac's room almost off by heart. Together they ran through several different corridors, until they reached the lifts. Danny reached forwards and pressed the button, obviously hoping to get the lift rather than the stairs. Don couldn't quite help the look of complete incredulity that appeared on his face as he stared at his friend, how the hell could he be willing to wait for a lift? The male glanced at him before allowing the ghost of a sheepish smile cross his lips, before another exchange could pass between the two they turned to the stairs.

Don took two steps at a time, his breathing coming in fast, ragged bursts. It wasn't the fact that he was unfit, on the contrary he had to be in tip-top condition in his line of work, but his worry and panic were beginning to take over. He rarely allowed these emotions to take control because of the fact that they could destroy him, they could turn him into a gibbering idiot and he could not allow them to do that now. He needed to be in control, able to look after Mac, able to rip apart anyone who was hurting him.

Quickly he shook himself mentally, no one would be there, with any luck they'd get there just before Clark could get to him and all would be fine. Behind him he could hear Danny's feet smacking against the hard steps. Not for the first time Flack found himself wishing he had wings or something that could help him move faster!

Finally they reached the right floor; Don grabbed the door and pulled it open not stopping to check whether Danny was right behind him. All that mattered was getting to Mac's room, once they had achieved that objective then he could sort out the rest of it, but until then he could only allow one thing to occupy his mind.

Several doctors and nurses sent him scandalised looks as he raced down the corridor but he didn't care, he was sure one of them would end up calling security but then he'd be able to flash his badge and berate them for not being able to take better care of their patients. God, he hoped he didn't have to use that! If he did then that would mean that Mac wasn't all right, that would mean that something had happened to him. Suddenly the door to Mac's room came into view; Don coaxed his legs to move faster until finally he reached it.

A hand flew to his gun and he pulled it out, just in case, then he turned to see Danny already at his side and nodding for him to enter. Without a word he opened the door and shot into the room, his heart seemed to freeze as he was greeted by the sight of Stella lying on the floor blood flowing freely from a wound on her head. Slowly he turned to his right and his eyes alighted on someone who could only be Richard Clark. Don felt his heart restart at a frantic pace as his anger began to try to take control, Clark was holding Mac by his hair and a gun was being pressed into the older man's neck. He could already see that if Clark fired the gun then the shot would kill Mac instantly, the bastard had the gun at exactly the right angle. Flack wanted to shoot him now, but he knew that Clark could probably pull the trigger on his gun a hell of a lot faster then he could on his own, this would take some work.

"What a lovely surprise, hey Detective Taylor? You're friends have come to watch you die." Clark's voice was different to how he'd imagined it, Flack had to admit that he had kind of expected the guy to have a big moustache that he twirled at intermittent intervals and his voice would be extremely deep with an evil laugh accompanying it. Okay, so he may have watched a few too many movies as a kid and was now disillusioned when it came to bad guys, but still did the guy have to have such a normal voice? There was nothing about this man that would suggest he was a big, gun touting villain, except the gun he now held at a CSI's throat.

"What have you done to my officers?" Don asked, trying to keep his anger out of his voice.

"Ah, well they were most entertaining. I believe someone will be finding them shortly, if they look in the right place of course." He was not in the mood for games, he wouldn't put it past Clark to have murdered the officers he'd put on duty here.

"Why don't you drop the gun, Clark? There's two of us and one of you, I think even you can do the maths here." Danny's voice broke the short silence that had fallen, he was staring between Clark and Mac and Flack could tell that he was getting desperate to make sure that his boss was all right. As Flack looked towards Mac he could tell that something was up, his friend's eyes were drooping and his entire frame was shaking slightly. Had he put up a fight? God the idiot, not even bullet wounds or stab wounds could keep this guy away from trouble!

"Oh, but I think I have a trump card here, Detective. You know that I could kill him before you've even finished pulling the trigger, so do you really think I'm the one who should be bothering with mental arithmetic at the moment?" Flack could feel Danny tense as the other man stopped speaking, they had to diffuse the situation or gain an upper hand quickly, otherwise this was all lost.

"Okay, okay. What do you say we all lower our guns and no one gets hurt?" Christ he sounded like a hippy! It seemed that Clark thought so as well, because he turned towards Don with a raised eyebrow before speaking,

"I've got an idea, why don't you two lower your guns and then we'll see who gets hurt?" Okay, so diplomacy didn't work with this guy, but maybe…Slowly Flack lowered his gun and motioned for Danny to do the same, he could feel the stunned gaze of his friend but he refused to acknowledge it. If they could just make Clark believe that they were going to comply then maybe they could disarm him…somehow. Yeah, so plans weren't his strong point, but at least he was trying something. From the corner of his eye he could see Danny reluctantly lowering his gun to the floor, but Don kept his eyes fixed on Clark's face which was the picture of smugness.

"Fantastic, I thought I'd be able to win you round." Suddenly he jerked Mac upright, pulling at his hair until he was stood on extremely shaky legs. Don could feel his anger once more trying to reach out and make him leap at the guy but he took a deep, calming breath and stayed stock still. "Now gentleman, I believe I've got some unfinished business to attend to." Without warning the gun moved from Mac's throat and pointed straight at Danny, Don cried out trying to warn his friend. Clark's finger tightened on the trigger and before he even knew what he was doing Flack found himself leaping at Danny and pulling him to the ground. He felt something sharp piercing his side and just managed to stop himself crying out in pain. Both he and Danny hit the ground and all the wind was knocked out of him. He'd been hit! He'd been shot! How many times did he have to end up in hospital whilst doing this job?! He guessed it was only a glancing shot, maybe just getting the left hand side of his abdomen.

Suddenly his attention was arrested by sounds of a scuffle; he lifted his head and saw Mac trying to wrestle the gun away from Clark. Beneath him he felt Danny stir and push him onto the floor, he tried to stand, to offer assistance but the pain in his side meant that he was a lot slower than normal.

Danny got to his feet and began to hurry towards the two males; they needed to get the gun away from Clark. From his position on the floor Don could see out of the room and he knew that in seconds doctors and nurses would be hurrying towards this room due to the gun shot. In the distance he heard a lift 'ding' into existence and he sincerely hoped that it was back-up.


	15. Chapter 15

I am so sorry for the delay, writer's block took over along with desperate revision for mock exams. Hopefully the chapters will pick up now we're near the end, but I can't guarentee anything.

Thanks again to my beta, who's amazing and helped to pick out those horrondous mistakes that appeared in this one xD Anyway please do read and review, and please don't be too angry with me for the length of time we had to wait for this chapter =(

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Time seemed to be going at an extraordinarily slow speed, Mac wasn't completely sure what was happening, all he knew was that he had to get the gun off Clark. This thought was stuck in his mind, kept there by the reminder that if he failed then they could all be killed. The feel of the cold metal under his fingertips was the only indication he had if he was anywhere near the gun, but whenever his fingers brushed it the struggle would begin afresh. The tussle was becoming more and more violent, both men desperate to win. Mac could feel his strength diminishing rapidly as pain shot through his body, suddenly he realised why the doctors had told him to stay in bed once he returned home! The pain was building as Clark managed to push him down on the floor and roll on top of him, fists flying at his face and torso. All he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears at a tumultuous pace, his vision was darkening; sharp, stabbing pain blocking his senses as his body began to rebel. All he wanted to do was make sure that no one got hurt, but his brain seemed to be stuck on self-preservation.

Mac reached a hand out to his right, desperately searching for something he could use to defend himself. His eyes widened as the cool feeling of metal came into contact with his fingers once more. Before he could clasp it any tighter, Clark's assault on his upper body ceased and he let out a scream as the other man practically threw himself on top of his body, his fingers scratching at Mac's to get the gun. The pain was almost unbearable, he began to feel dizzy; the whole world was suddenly spinning at an alarming rate.

Without warning he felt another set of hands grappling with the gun, it was slowly being pulled out of his reach and nothing he did could get it back. Then Clark was practically dragged off him, he desperately tried to suck in air and to stop the pain that was still building inside him. The fight began anew, except this time Mac remained on the floor trying to fight the nausea that was causing him to remain horizontal. After a few seconds he was able to raise his head and he saw Danny and Clark rolling on the floor, blood was flowing freely from Clark's nose and Danny's lip. Mac could only guess what he looked like! Probably like some kind of monster who was in bad need of corrective surgery.

Green eyes turned to Flack, who was lying motionless on the floor. Almost forgetting the pain in his own body Mac rolled over onto his front and crawled towards his friend, desperately praying that he was still breathing. Clumsy, shaking hands searched for a pulse, this couldn't happen again, he refused to let it happen again! The last time Flack had ended up in hospital he'd sworn to do everything he could to make sure that he was safe and now…now there was a pool of opaque red liquid around Don's body.

Suddenly he felt something, a faint pulse beating against his fingers and he bowed his head in relief. He didn't want to admit how scared he'd been! Years ago he hadn't wanted to allow anyone close; after Claire died he'd wanted to keep everyone at arms length because he didn't want them to see that underneath this tough exterior there was a breaking heart. Now, well now he'd let them all get too close. He didn't know what he'd do if he lost any of them. Slowly his eyes moved to Stella, he was too scared to check on her, he didn't want to reach her only to find that she was…no! She wasn't! He wouldn't allow her to be…gone.

Behind him the sounds of the scuffle were still as loud as before, outside the door he thought he could hear footsteps hurrying towards them. Help? Suddenly he heard a groan, then unsteady footfalls; slowly he turned in time to see the goon he'd knocked out earlier get to his feet, shaking his head groggily before beginning to make his way towards Danny and Clark, who were once more on their feet. Mac opened his mouth to speak, to warn Danny, but then he saw something glinting in the goon's hand and before he realised what he was doing he was on his feet and hobbling as fast as his injuries would allow towards the male. His arms reached out and wrapped themselves around the other man's neck, and within seconds he was fighting for breath.

A feral grin spread across Mac's lips as the male's face began to turn a fantastic shade of magenta, how easy would it be to kill him right then and there? It would serve him right for hurting Stella, almost killing him and for every other bloody thing that had gone wrong in the past few days.

The man's arms were grabbing at the chock hold, trying to prise Mac off but he was failing miserably. The weapon, still clutched in his hand, seemed forgotten as the need to breathe become more and more imperative. The hands continued to flap around giving up their attempts to prise the hands away from his neck, instead aiming for an impression of a bird trying to fly away. Mac suddenly felt renewed pain as the man began to struggle more violently; he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep this up.

"Mac!" The voice broke through the murderous cloud in his mind and he released the goon, who fell to the floor gasping for air his face now a light tinge of purple. Mac looked up and saw Danny staring at him with a horrified expression on his face, the gun clutched in his hand and pointing at the crumpled form of Clark.

Outside the footsteps were getting louder and he could hear voices shouting, now he could definitely tell that back-up was arriving, granted it was a little bit too late. He looked away from the younger male's face, not wanting to feel guilty at the present moment in time, and hobbled over to Stella. Trembling hands reached out and pushed her hair away from her face. He knew that he should go to Flack and put pressure on his wound, but he needed to know. Before he could check for a pulse a barrage of people burst into the hospital room and he was forced to wrench his eyes away from Stella's still form.

At the head of the group were Lindsay and Sheldon, both were wearing the same terrified expressions as they stood panting in the doorway. As Hawkes spotted Flack he sprang into action along with one of the nurses who had appeared with them. The other two doctors and nurses spread out to check on Clark, Danny and finally Stella.

"Mr Taylor? Are you all right? I need to examine you." The female doctor stated with a tone that told him that she meant business, however he held up a hand and cut her off from a tirade that was bound to come about him being out of bed when he had such obvious and nasty injuries.

"She needs help now more than me, I'm fine." She gave him a look, which clearly stated that she didn't believe him one bit. For a second he thought that she was going to tell him to 'stop acting like the hero' but it was then that Stella gave a small groan and the doctor's attention was turned to her new patient. Mac sat down heavily, just managing to push himself out of the way and up against the end of his bed. Slowly he glanced towards Flack, who seemed to have gained consciousness and was complaining about the lack of morphine in his system.

Pain was building in his side and he placed a hand over the source of it, his eyes were beginning to flutter closed when he felt something wet against his fingers. He looked down and saw that red was staining his hospital gown; in fact his whole hand was now covered in the red liquid. He replaced his hand, his mind working furiously to figure out what had happened to cause this free flow of blood.

"Mac?" Danny's face swam in front of him and Mac blinked owlishly at him, instantly concern flooded the younger man's face.

"Mac what's wrong?" Slowly his eyes travelled to the hand that was pressing against Mac's side and his eyes widened, "Oh shit!" The profanity made Mac giggle for some unknown reason, and Danny's look of concern only deepened as his boss exhibited extremely strange behaviour. In fact Danny was pretty sure that he had never heard Mac giggle during their entire acquaintance.

Around him he could see the doctors taking Stella, Clark and Flack out of the room on gurneys and he felt a slight pang of sadness to see them disappear. Well okay he didn't feel it for Clark, after all that bastard had tried to kill him, although he had enjoyed the adrenalin rush of the whole experience. As he watched them he wondered how they'd managed to get it all done so quickly, unless he'd lost some time whilst he was staring at the blood on his side.

"Hawkes! Doc!" Danny's voice sounded slightly far away, but as Mac blinked at him he realised that he was only a few centimetres in front of him. How strange. The other male was clearly yelling at someone, but Mac's vision was beginning to darken once more. He heard running footsteps and then Hawkes' voice sounded at his side.

"Oh my God. He may have ripped his stitches!" He felt hands trying to get at the wound in his side and for a few seconds he fought against them, however this struggle zapped the last of his energy and as he let his arms fall to his sides he whispered what was meant to be 'I'm sorry' but he wasn't sure that they could hear him, before he fell into the dark abyss of unconsciousness once again.

XXXXXXXXX

Sheldon couldn't believe his eyes as he reached the doorway to Mac's hospital room, when Lindsay had found him and practically dragged him from the lab and into the car he'd been completely overwhelmed by the thought that someone would be trying to get Mac again. The fear that had been running through his mind had been unable to shift throughout the car journey, the traffic jams hadn't done anything to calm him and so when he'd finally been able to get onto a small stretch of open road he'd put his foot down and sped through the sets of lights.

He'd been worried sick about Mac over the past week and a half and for a small moment in time he had begun to think that maybe, just maybe things were going to get a bit better for them all. Obviously he'd been wrong! He couldn't think of a time when he'd been more wrong as he gazed into the room and saw Flack lying on the ground bleeding profusely from a wound in his abdomen, Mac crouched next to Stella and Danny holding a gun which was pointing directly at another male on the floor. At that moment in time Sheldon got tunnel vision and all he saw was Flack on the floor, immediately he hurried towards his friend his instincts as a doctor taking over before he could stop them. He checked for a pulse and thankfully found one, it was a bit thready but at least it was there! The doctors and nurses who had appeared with them moved around the room, assessing the injured and dealing with them in the familiar detached, clinical process that he missed slightly. Sure, being a CSI was good, in fact at times he could even call it fun but almost every day you were dealing with the dead, there were only a few times when you could help the living and he treasured those moments. He'd left the surgical team because in his mind he was the reason that person had died, if he'd done a bit more then maybe they could have lived, so he had made the assumption that working with those that had already died would get rid of the fear and guilt that had consumed him.

His hand reached out and put pressure on the wound, trying desperately to stop the bleeding whilst he began to speak to his unconscious friend, desperate to bring him round in order to better assess the damage. Around him the other doctors and nurses were helping Stella, Danny and Mac but for the moment he paid them no heed, not until he saw Flack's eyes begin to flutter slightly. Hawkes lightly tapped his face, keen to get the male to fully open his eyes.

"What?" Flack's voice was groggy, almost as though he'd just been rudely awoken from a pleasant dream, and Sheldon couldn't help the small smile that appeared on his lips despite the situation.

"Nice of you to join us." He said, keeping the same amount of pressure on Flack's chest and watching his friend's eyes.

"S'not my fault you got here late, you missed out on all the fun." Don copied Hawkes' smile as he gazed blearily up at him, trying to figure out what had happened to him. "Where's Mac?" He asked, all joviality gone as he tried to sit up. Hawkes laid a hand on his shoulder and firmly pushed him back onto the floor, he was not going to allow Flack to sit up when he had a gaping hole in his chest.

"He's just over there; the doctors are checking him out. I'm sure he's fine Don, okay? Now you've got to lie back, otherwise you'll make the bleeding even worse."

"Bleeding? I'm bleeding? How'd that happen…Oh I remember now, I got shot…why does this always happen to me?" The male asked looking thoroughly dejected and finally Hawkes felt a small part of his worry leave, if Flack was moaning and complaining about this injury then he was probably fine. As long as the bullet hadn't hit any major organs and once the bleeding was stopped then he'd need a few stitches, a couple of week's bed rest and then he'd be up and about, as good as new.

"I dunno, maybe if you stop watching all those cop shows on T.V. then you won't feel the need to jump in front of guns all the time?" This elicited a small chuckle from Don, which quickly turned into a cough and finally to a few grunts of pain.

"Don't…make…me…laugh." He said through grunts, and Hawkes apologised knowing that he shouldn't really have made the joke but it had been pretty impossible not to! Slowly he looked around at the rest of the people in the room, from the corridor outside he could hear something like gurneys being rolled towards them but inside the room a sort of calm had developed.

"You know, Doc, it'd be great to have some sort of pain killer about now. Don't you guys give morphine anymore?" The whine wasn't what Sheldon had been expected and this time it was his turn to chuckle, as he turned back to Flack and shook his head.

"You'll get morphine when they get you out of here. Buck up Flack, thought you were meant to be the tough guy."

"I am tough," Sheldon swore that Flack was pouting as he said this, "but even tough guys like a bit of pain relief from **bullet wounds!"**

After a few more seconds the gurneys arrived, Flack and Stella were promptly loaded onto them and Sheldon was just about to follow them when he heard his name being called. Lindsay glanced at him, gave him a swift smile before hurrying off to watch over their other two friends. He turned on his heel and stared at Danny and Mac, the latter of whom was leaning against the bed looking as pale as the bed sheets.

Sheldon hurried towards the two of them and was shocked to see a crimson stain appearing across Mac's hospital gown, which was most definitely not good!

"Oh my God. He may have ripped his stitches!" His hands flew to the older man's chest and he tried to apply pressure to it, his mind momentarily going blank as he watched his friend's face grow paler and paler. This couldn't be happening, not now! Mac was fighting against him, trying to get him to stop touching the wound but shortly he gave up the struggle and soon his face was lax and he lay unmoving.

"Mac?" Hawkes reached one hand up and tapped the male's face lightly, when he received no response he tapped harder. "Mac!" Nothing. He turned to Danny, who was looking about as pale as Mac,

"Get help!" Danny took one last look at Mac, his mentor and friend before he sprinted out of the room and down the corridor yelling to the doctors and nurses who had had their hands full with Stella, Flack and the other male. Hawkes focused all his attention on the wound; he lifted up the gown and saw that the cut was deep and long.

"Please, Mac, don't do this! Not now!" He raised a slightly trembling hand to feel for a pulse, for one heart stopping second he felt nothing against his fingertips before suddenly a soft thump hit him and he exhaled. Mac's pulse was slow, a bit too slow, no doubt he was going into shock but he was alive, for the moment.

Brown eyes glanced at the door, desperately willing for some of the doctors or nurses to reappear swiftly. Beneath his hands he could feel the blood seeping through the gaps between his fingers, flowing down to join the ever widening pool on the floor. This couldn't happen! He was not about to let Mac bleed to death when he'd managed to survive God knows what only a short time ago.

"Come on, Mac!" He said, turning to look at his friend briefly before his eyes shot back to the door, "Come on." His voice was now no more than a whisper. Running footsteps could be heard beyond the door, and he silently prayed that the Head of the CSIs could hold on just a little bit longer.


	16. Chapter 16

Well here's the next chapter, I tried to get this one done as quickly as possibly so hopefully it's not been too long a wait since the last one. Thanks again to all of you who have reviewed it so far, also thanks to my wonderful beta who's just amazing!

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Fear had been a constant companion for the entire CSI team over the past week and a half, they'd been continuously worrying about either Mac or trying to solve the murder and of course when they'd found out that those two things were linked, well the worry just increased in severity. Danny couldn't remember a time when he'd had this little sleep, he was pretty sure that he was running on fumes at the moment and he was only being kept awake by his need to see his friends awake and alert. There had been one ray of hope in the past hour, that was the fact that the bullet that had hit Flack hadn't been too bad and he'd be able to make a full recovery after surgery, as for Mac and Stella…he'd heard absolutely nothing about them and the doctors seemed determined to ignore his questions. He was getting extremely close to grabbing one of them by their collars and demanding to know how his friends were doing, a small part of his mind told him that that wouldn't be the best course of action, but what stopped him was the comforting presence of Lindsay's hand on his arm as they sat in the extremely uncomfortable, plastic chairs outside Mac's hospital room. Hawkes was sat with Flack, but he should be moving to check on Stella soon.

A hand reached up and Danny scrubbed at his face, wincing slightly as his fingers trailed over his cut lip. In all fairness it was nothing compared to what the others had suffered, and during the hours they'd been sat here he'd wished that it was he who'd been shot or knocked over the head with a blunt instrument just so that his friends could be awake.

Blue eyes closed briefly and his mind instantly replayed the minute he'd seen the stain of red on Mac's hospital gown, nausea had welled up inside him as he reached his boss and he couldn't remember feeling that scared in a long time. He had never been squeamish, he didn't mind seeing blood on cadavers or even on living people but when he'd seen it on Mac his heart and done a back flip and then skipped into overdrive. From this scene his brain backtracked to seeing Mac lying in his hospital bed after he'd been attacked, all those tubes sticking out of him keeping him alive. At that moment Danny had seriously considered the possibility that they might lose him, he just couldn't see how he could get better when he was hooked up to all those stupid machines.

Beside him he felt Lindsay shift slightly then a new weight appeared on his shoulder, he opened his eyes and turned his head slightly. A small smile appeared on his bruised lips, she was asleep. He couldn't blame her, they'd been here for hours and it didn't look like the physicians were going to tell them anything about their friends' conditions. Their relationship hadn't been easy, hell it'd been the epitome of a rocky road but now things seemed to have calmed down, although that could just be because they were both exhausted and frustrated at the lack of information.

Carefully he leant his head against the wall behind his chair, his eyes turned back to Mac's hospital room door. The window blinds had been closed long ago, in order to stop the three healthy CSIs from peering in and trying to catch the doctor or nurse's attention. As he sat there he couldn't help but let his mind wander, it began to replay over all the events that had occurred recently from the moment of getting that phone call from Stella up to the present moment in time. The only real good part of this whole event had been the knowledge that they'd be able to get a conviction for Clark and his associates but it seemed like too high a price at the moment. From the way the doctors had looked when they'd examined Stella the prognosis hadn't looked good, no doubt the blow to the head was harder than they'd first thought, maybe there was brain damage? What if she was in a coma and never woke up? As for Mac, well all they'd been told was that he'd managed to rip his stitches, losing a lot of blood in the process. They'd mentioned nothing about his other injuries; although Danny was sure that the fight had exacerbated the original ones immensely. Not even Mac could be lucky enough for that not to happen.

As for Clark and his accomplice, well the last Danny had heard was that they were both probably going to be fine despite Mac's attempt to kill one of them, and they had an armed guard making sure that both of them stayed where they were until they could be taken to the police station.

The head on his shoulder shifted slightly, he turned in time to see Lindsay's hand leave his arm in order to scratch her nose before it fell lightly onto the arm of the chair. He felt a slight pang as the calming warmth of her hand left his arm, but this was swiftly lifted as he shook his head fondly at her sleeping form.

Suddenly he heard footsteps coming down the corridor towards them; he turned his head to look out for the figure and before long Hawkes came into view his expression grim. Danny's eyes widened as he took in his friend's expression, it couldn't mean…could it? No! It couldn't be. Gently he manoeuvred Lindsay's head off his shoulder, and within seconds she had curled up in her seat, still asleep. Once this task was completed he stood, staring at Sheldon and praying that he wasn't bringing the news that they were all dreading.

"What is it, Doc?" He asked before the other male could even open his mouth, he folded his arms shifting his weight from one foot to the other once before he began to work hard at controlling his breathing. He didn't know what he'd do if Hawkes was here to tell him that Stella hadn't made it.

"The doctors have finished checking her over and can't find any other injuries," Blue eyes urged the other male to continue, "but she's still not woken up, with the severity of her concussion they're worried that if she doesn't wake up soon…"

"She might not wake up at all." Danny finished for him, feeling as though the weight of everything that had happened so far was physically crushing him. Everything seemed to be going wrong at once, and none of them could do anything to stop it. It was as if the whole world was charging at them with machine guns and all they had was a small stick each.

"How about Flack?" He asked, his mind desperate for some good news.

"Apparently he should be fine, the bullet didn't hit any major organs and although he lost a lot of blood it wasn't significant enough to cause any real damage. As long as he actually listens to the doctors and stays in bed for a few weeks he'll be on the road to recovery quickly." The two males exchanged a brief smile as both knew that it would take a lot to keep Flack in bed, especially if Mac or Stella were still in hospital.

Finally Hawkes turned away from him and moved to the window into Mac's room, the blinds were still drawn but that didn't deter the CSI from staring through the window and being greeted by his own reflection. Danny didn't move, instead he guessed at the silent question.

"We haven't heard anything about him, they shut us out. I can't see what they're gaining from doing this, but maybe they're just getting their kicks from keeping us in the dark." He tried to keep his anger in check, but his voice began to rise in volume as he spoke. There was a small snuffle from behind him and he took a deep breath, hoping that he hadn't woken Lindsay up and deciding that no matter how annoyed he was at the doctors it wouldn't do anyone any good to have him screaming and shouting. He couldn't afford to act like a petulant child, not now at any rate.

"I'm gunna check in on Flack, you alright to stay here and watch the two of them?" Danny asked, indicating the blocked window and the sleeping form of Lindsay. Sheldon gave him a small smile and nodded his assent, for a second Danny returned his weary smile before he turned and began to walk away towards the hospital room that held one of his closest friends. This was just not their week!

XXXXXXXXX

Stella felt as though she was floating, everything around her was black but occasionally she could see shapes drifting across the void. This had to be one of the strangest experiences of her life, but in a way it brought a sense of relief and comfort to her. At least now she felt rested, compared to being basically dead on her feet for the past week.

Her mind began to decipher all the events that had happened over the course of these past few days, for some reason there was a gap in her memory and she had no clue as to why it was there or what had happened during it. Maybe she'd fallen asleep? No, that would be completely ridiculous. She could have gotten hit on the head…yes that was far more likely. Therefore that would mean that this strange drifting feeling would be the result of a concussion. Stella was no doctor, but even she knew that to be in this state either she would have to be on strong painkillers or that was one hell of a blow she took.

As these thoughts continued to whirl around in her brain she tried to raise her hand, but nothing happened. She couldn't feel her body, only the floating sensation. Once more she tried to move some part of her body, but nothing happened. It was as if each limb was not attached to her anymore, they were all separate and had no intention of joining back on to her.

Suddenly she heard something, a voice, calling to her through the darkness. Her attempts at movement ceased as she struggled to recognise the voice, deep down she knew who it was but she just couldn't recall the name. A face swam before her, a crop of dark hair and blue eyes. Don?

"Hey, Stell." There was a brief pause, and she could practically see him gazing at the floor, trying to figure out what to say next without looking like a complete fool. "I dunno if you can hear me, I hope you can otherwise I'll look a bit stupid." She tried to smile but yet again nothing happened, it seemed that all she was able to do was listen to what he was going to say with no way to respond.

A silence stretched for a few seconds, and Stella began to wonder if Don had given up and left her deciding against talking to someone who couldn't keep up a conversation. At this her mind turned back to the incident which had put her in this situation, why the hell couldn't she remember it? A vague image of something appeared whenever she thought about it, but it was too blurred to make out anything substantial. She knew that at the moment she was in a semi-conscious state, therefore she felt no pain but that didn't mean that her body wasn't broken in reality. Suddenly there was a sigh and she turned her mind back to Flack's words, hoping that somehow they'd help her to get out of this black void.

"I can't believe this happened. I should have gotten there quicker, maybe if I'd actually decided to leave work and look after Mac, hell one of my best friends was in the hospital and I didn't even think about asking for a bit of extra time off to check on him every once in a while. If I'd been there then you wouldn't have had to deal with them on your own. If I'd been there you wouldn't be lying there and we wouldn't be worrying that you won't…" He broke off suddenly, and Stella began to realise the severity of her injuries, obviously the doctors were telling the group that she may not wake up. Like hell she wouldn't wake up! She'd fight tooth and nail to get back to them! She was Stella Bonasera and she was most definitely not going to die because of…well whatever happened to put her in this almost comatose state.

"You know when I saw you lying there I think my heart skipped a couple of beats, and no doubt you're getting slightly worried that Don Flack's becoming all poetic or something, but I'm telling the truth, no clichés are evident here. You're one of my best friends, Stell. You know me better than half my family do, you've been there for me and what do I do? You get hurt and I couldn't do anything to stop it." There was another pause, then there was a strange feeling she could only guess that he was holding her hand, but the touch was faint and almost non-existent.

"God this is hard. I don't wanna believe what they're saying about you, you're gunna come back to us I just know it. Even if you are gunna take your sweet time doing it." A small chuckle escaped his lips, and Stella felt fondness well up inside her. Flack was never one for outpouring of emotion, well no guy was really, but there were only occasions when she'd heard him talk like this.

"We haven't heard any news on Mac yet, well at least Hawkes hasn't told me…I guess they don't want me worrying or something. As if not giving me information is gunna make me feel any better! The thing is I can remember Mac being there when the doctors were checking me over, but I have no idea what happened. Again I failed. God, this whole thing just isn't fair, Stell! We're meant to go through tough times but at the end of it all we always come out on top, so why is this time different? Why does it feel like we've lost when we have all the perps in custody?" Suddenly another voice sounded and, not for the first time, Stella wished she could look to see who it was. Once more the voice was familiar but names and faces were all blurring into one.

"Don what the hell are you doing in here?!" It was another male voice, sounding confused and annoyed but she had no idea why.

"I wanted to see how she was doing." Don's tone was indignant, no doubt resenting the fact that he was being told off for coming to check on a friend.

"How the hell did you get here? You didn't walk here did you?" Stella was slightly confused at these questions, surely Flack was capable of walking, or had he been injured too?

"No I didn't walk, one of the nurses gave me a wheelchair so I've been speeding around in that."

"Oh. I was wondering why you weren't in your room, we were getting worried 'bout you." The voice was so familiar but the name was escaping her, this was getting extremely annoying.

"Danny, I'm not likely to run out of a hospital when I need to be in it." Stella desperately wanted to shout 'ah ha' at learning the male's name, but it seemed that she still had no control over her body.

"I know, it's just…well," There was another pause, and the female could practically feel the two of them looking at her an unspoken conversation taking place.

"Yeah. I just…I just wanted to see her. You know? Thought that if I spoke to her she might…I dunno…"

"Wake up?" Oh how she wished that she could do that, all she wanted to do was open her eyes and see her two friends, to talk with them now and let them know that she was all right. There was another chuckle as the faint pressure on her hand disappeared, no doubt he'd removed his hand and was feeling slightly self-conscious.

"I know it sounds stupid…"

"No, it's what Hawkes has been doing…what I was going to do." Danny's voice was soft, but then footsteps echoed through the room as he made his way towards her bed.

"She's going to wake up right?" It seemed that Flack was trying desperately to keep his emotions in check, but he was failing as his voice hitched slightly when he spoke. Why couldn't she say something?! Just a small word could alleviate their anxiety and pain.

"Yeah." The one word answer that Danny supplied didn't sound entirely convincing.

"Yeah, 'course she will." Don's attempt didn't exactly inspire confidence either, but she knew that she would wake up soon. She had to, because she couldn't cope without them. If she didn't open her eyes, she'd never see them again. She'd never get to hug her friends, talk to them, laugh at their jokes and cry at their pain. She needed them.

"The doctors have said that as long as she wakes up she should be okay." Danny's voice broke the short silence that had fallen.

"Really? You hear that Stell? No excuse for being off work now, maybe it's best you stay asleep, hey?" Flack's attempt at humour made her chuckle, and this time a sound escaped her lips. The darkness was fading rapidly, pain was beginning to bombard her from different areas. Her head was throbbing, there was a scratching in the crook of her arm and her eyes felt too heavy to lift.

"Stella?" When Flack's hand grabbed hers she felt it properly, she tried to squeeze his fingers but that seemed to be beyond her at the moment.

"Stell, can you hear me?" Danny's voice this time, and her other hand was being held in his. With a great effort she opened her eyes, blinking slowly at the two men. In her whole life she hadn't seen two grown men so close to tears, and she allowed a small, sleepy smile to grace her lips as she looked between the two.

"Oh thank God!" Was Flack's only response as he collapsed back into his wheelchair, his fingers squeezing her tightly and the other rubbing at his eyes trying to get rid of any evidence of his relief.

"About time Stella, what you been doing? Eavesdropping?" Danny's eyes were shining slightly, but he seemed more intent on making sure she was really awake.

"Well, you two are just so interesting to listen to." Her voice was hoarse and weak, horribly weak but at least she _could_ talk. The pain in her head was at a rather high level, and she closed her eyes momentarily against the thumping that was assaulting her brain.

When she opened them once more she saw Danny and Flack gazing at her in concern, before she could say anything Danny had moved towards the door, shot them a quick smile before hurrying out of the room and out into the corridor. She turned a puzzled look to Flack, who also smiled at her.

"He's gone to get a doctor, gotta check you over." Stella nodded once, closing her eyes again as the pain drummed that little bit harder against her head.

"Headache?" Another nod. "Hardly surprising, that was one hell of a knock you took! What a bunch we are, I get shot, Danny gets a busted lip, you get knocked out and Mac…" His voice trailed off as he mentioned the older male, and Stella's eyes flew open fear and worry overriding all pain that was weaving its way through her body.

"What happened to Mac?"

"I'm not sure, but I'm sure he's fine. You've just got to relax, okay? No point getting yourself worked up when you've only just woken up is there?" Tiredness was pulling at her, she tried to get rid of it but it was insistent. The female opened her mouth once, trying to speak, before she closed it and her eyes closed as she gave into sleep.

XXXXXXXXX

Flack smiled fondly at her briefly, before he took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. He'd been so scared that she wouldn't wake up, that they'd lose her. For some unknown reason he'd wanted to come here, just to talk to her, to see if she could hear him. Apparently she could, and now she had woken up. He'd been hard pressed to hold back tears as he saw her open her eyes, and that had definitely taken him by surprise as he rarely cried! He guessed that everything that had happened had just gotten on top of him, and that his brain had figured that if Stella woke up then everything would be fine. How he wished that could be true!

When he'd accidentally mentioned Mac's name he'd seen her eyes open, her fear evident as she stared at him. All he wanted was some information, that was all any of them wanted, on Mac but instead they'd been given nothing.

Suddenly there were footsteps by the door, blue eyes glanced up to see Danny returning but without a doctor in tow. Flack couldn't stop his eyebrows rising in surprise, he'd expected his friend to have brought half the medical staff kicking and screaming down here to check on Stella.

"They've got news on Mac." That's all that needed to be said, Flack nodded once and Danny smiled wanly before hurrying out of the door once more. As much as Don wanted to go with him, someone needed to stay with Stella just in case she woke up again. He knew that the others would tell him the news soon enough, but that didn't stop the worry that was still gnawing at his insides and he gazed back down at Stella.


	17. Chapter 17

I cannot apologise enough for the delay in posting this chapter, everything seemed to get out of hand with exams and then, yes I'll admit it; I almost gave up on it because it seemed like too big a task to write another chapter. Thankfully, however, I stumbled across the bit I'd already written for this chapter and I was able to continue. Please don't kill me for the wait you guys had :[

I'm going to try my best to finish this story before I go to University, because I doubt I'll have much time to do it whilst I'm there. Anyway I hope you enjoy this chapter and, as ever, please do read and let me know what you think.

Thanks for bearing with me.

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Danny practically ran through the corridors of the hospital, desperate to get to Mac's room quickly to hear what this news was. Hawkes had paged him to let him know that a doctor had come out of the room and was willing to speak to him; however he'd neglected to say whether or not he'd been told anything about Mac's condition. This served to do nothing but aggravate him and increase his worry and anxiety about his friend, which was one of the reasons why he was running. He wanted to burn off some of these overbearing emotions before he got to Hawkes, otherwise he might end up doing something he'd regret.

A door opened suddenly to his right and he had to do some rather impressive evasive manoeuvres in order to avoid the young nurse who came out of the room, he threw her a quick apology over his shoulder, not wanting to stop running. He could hear the blood pumping in his ears, and his anger was melting away slowly as he continued to run. It was as if the emotion was flowing through his body, down his legs, out of his feet and into the floor beneath him.

Finally he reached the corridor that held Mac's room; he slowed his run down to a jog as he spotted Hawkes and Lindsay. Blue eyes travelled between the two of them, noticing the lack of a doctor to tell them what was going on. As he reached them he raised an eyebrow questioningly, not quite sure what was going on.

"I though you said they had news on Mac?" He asked Hawkes, trying to control his breathing after his exertion. A corner of the other male's mouth twitched upwards for a second, taking in Danny's ragged breathing and no doubt coming to the conclusion that he'd sped through the hospital in order to get here and find out the news.

"They do, but I said to wait for you. He got called back in by a nurse…"

"Don't worry it's nothing serious," Lindsay cut in as Danny felt his eyes widen, for a second there he'd thought that something else had happened. "She just needed help attaching a new drip bag to the I.V." The female continued, trying to calm Danny down before he got himself worked up over nothing.

"How's Flack?" Hawkes asked, changing the subject rapidly and Danny was pleased for the distraction. He was sure that if a silence had fallen between them then he would have started pacing, then moaning about the fact that the doctor hadn't come out yet.

"He's fine, he went to see Stella." As he spoke a smile broke across his face and he looked between his two companions, "She's awake, by the way." Lindsay raised a hand to her mouth as she gave a sigh of relief. All they needed now was news about Mac and then the pressure inside would disappear slightly, this whole situation had been a nightmare and Danny, for one, wanted it to be over quickly. Without realising what he was doing he reached out a hand and placed it on her arm, offering her silent support but she shrugged it off swiftly. Her eyes darted up to his, ignoring the hurt in the blue optics.

"I'm sorry…" Her words were cut off by the sounds of a door opening, all three turned as one to stare at Mac's hospital room door as it swung away from them and a man stepped out. Hawkes took a step forward, followed closely by Danny, whilst Lindsay hung back slightly; they all stared hopefully and expectantly at the doctor.

"He's stable, for the moment. I'm sorry that no one's spoken to you before, but we were worried about his injuries." Danny swallowed, the relief that had welled up only seconds before was fading slightly as the doctor spoke.

"What happened?" Hawkes asked, beating Danny to the question. The doctor looked between the three of them,

"I'm afraid that his altercation caused greater agitation to his existing injuries, as you surmised Doctor he ripped most of his stitches out which led to him losing a lot of blood. We managed to fix that problem, however, the surgeons found that the two ribs that had been broken previously had taken severe damage, to such an extent that one punctured a lung. We've been able to repair this, and for the moment we cannot see any further danger to Mr Taylor's health, although we will be monitoring him closely for the time being." Hawkes nodded slowly, and Danny glanced at the two doctors noticing that his friend seemed relieved which evidently meant that things weren't looking too bad for Mac at the moment. Well, as long as nothing else happened to him.

"Can we see him?" Danny asked, his were arms folded once more and he shifted his weight between his feet as he stared at the doctor.

"Yes, he's still under sedation but he should be coming round in about an hour." The doctor smiled at them all and moved aside to let them pass. Without further invitation the two males hurried past him and into Mac's room, their eyes fixing on their friend lying on the bed. Behind them Danny could hear Lindsay's hesitant footsteps; once again it seemed that she was blaming herself for this whole situation. However, this time he didn't try to give her comfort, apparently she didn't need it, and for the moment Mac was more important.

There were a number of tubes connecting him to various pieces of equipment, a heart monitor was showing his regular, if a little slow, heartbeat and an I.V. connected him to a drip. His skin was still pale but at least he looked slightly more human than the first time he'd been brought in here, Danny could only hope that he would wake up in the allotted time because he wanted to make sure his boss was alright.

Hawkes walked round the bed and grabbed one of the plastic chairs, he sat down in it and settled back to wait until Mac woke up. Danny took a few steps closer, checking his boss' face and his monitors despite not really understanding what they were saying but wanting to appear as though they meant something to him. Once this was done he shared a look with Sheldon before turning and heading out of the room, he knew that Hawkes would look after both Mac and Lindsay but someone needed to make sure Flack actually adhered to the laws laid down by the doctors. Otherwise he'd be in here for a hell of a lot longer than he needed to be.

XXXXXXXXXX

Mac woke suddenly, his eyes trying to adjust to the darkness that was engulfing him. He could feel a floor beneath him, the cold tiling was pressing against his clothes and the bare skin of his hands and feet. Where were his shoes? Slowly he sat up, trying to see where he was and what was around him, still nothing was illuminated and he didn't have the slightest clue as to where he could be.

There were no voices, no noise at all which was odd in itself. The last thing he could remember was being in his hospital room and seeing Stella lying on the floor, she had been bleeding and he'd wanted to help her. Had they got to her in time? What if she was dead…because of him. If he'd died when those goons had got hold of him the first time then none of this would ever have happened, his friends wouldn't be putting themselves in harm's way in order to protect him. He had always been the strong one, the protector and they'd never really had to worry about him but that had all changed now. They had reversed roles and he hated it, he despised every single minute when the others watched over him. He knew they were just trying to do what's best for him, but it made him feel weak and vulnerable. He was used to pain, he'd dealt with a lot of it both physically and emotionally but the thought that his friends had been harmed because of him was the worst kind imaginable. It was as if the remaining pieces of his heart, the parts that hadn't died with Claire or left with Peyton, were being crushed.

Suddenly a light appeared not far away from him, he shielded his eyes from it before squinting through his fingers at the figure that was stood in the centre. It couldn't be…could it? He felt his breathing quicken as he got shakily to his feet, it looked just like her. The same height, hair colour, same build. He shuffled closer, his hand lowering as he gazed at the female.

"Claire?" His voice was quieter than normal, as though he was scared that if he spoke any louder she'd disappear. However, as he said her name she smiled at him, her smile warming his soul and he felt his pace quicken. Before he knew it he was stood in front of her, looking into the face of his first love. "Claire." The question had gone from her name now, he knew who she was and he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and never let her go again.

"Mac," Her voice was still the same as he remembered, "I've missed you." This was all it took, his eyes began to sting and the first tears began to fall. She was here, in front of him, not buried beneath the rubble of the towers. He was getting the chance to speak to her again, to hear the lilting tone of her voice, to see how her hair fell gracefully around her. Mac blinked through the tears and noticed that she was wearing the same clothes that she had gone out in on that fateful day, her grey suit, the bracelet he'd given to her for their anniversary that year and her wedding ring glinted in the light. Subconsciously he rubbed at the place where his own ring should be, but of course he'd taken it off, having finally realised that she wouldn't return.

"Don't worry, darling. I didn't expect you to put your life on hold," She raised a hand to his face and wiped his tears away tenderly, her hand cradling his cheek as she gazed fondly into his eyes. "I'm so proud of you, you managed to live on despite all those times you thought you couldn't."

"It was so damn hard, every day waking up and realising over and over again that you weren't there. It was like losing you all over again, every single morning." His voice cracked as he spoke, his own hand reaching up and holding hers against his cheek. He'd wished for this for so long, but now he was wondering what this meant.

"I know," Her voice was soothing, her gaze sympathetic as she spoke. "I can't imagine what it was like. But you got through it, you've done so well and you've got people who love you still." A smile managed to make its way through the tears as he looked at her, feeling truly happy for the first time in months.

"But, honey, I need you to make a decision," He nodded, not completely understanding as he was just too happy that she was here. "You can come with me now, we'll be together forever or you can leave." He blinked, what was she talking about? Leave where?

"What?"

"You're not dead yet, Mac. You can choose. Me or them?" Her voice sounded perfectly normal but what she was asking was insane, how could he choose between them? Yes, he loved her, he always had but he couldn't just give up on his friends, not when they needed him.

"I…I…" He couldn't speak anymore, his mind was whirling with thoughts and he couldn't make sense of them all. He could go with her now and be with the woman he loved, the woman he'd missed for all these years for eternity or he could go back to his friends. It seemed like such a simple choice, but for some reason his mind kept conjuring up memories of the times he'd spent with Stella, Flack, Danny, Hawkes and Lindsay. He could remember laughing with them, sitting around drinking and telling one another stories. They'd torn down his wall and helped him see that the world around him wasn't as bad as it had once been, they'd helped to show him that light did shine even in the darkest moments. Don had saved him once, had managed to pull him back from the edge and stop him giving up right then and there.

In front of him his wife gave a sad smile, her finger stroking his cheek softly and he saw a tear begin to make its way down her own cheek. She knew what his answer was before he'd even said it.

"I'm sorry, but…"

"They need you. I know." Her hand withdrew and with it left the warmth that had filled him previously, she was going to leave and he may not see her again.

"I love you, I always have and I always will, Claire." He wanted to say it, he wanted to make sure that she knew how much she meant to him. The day he'd lost her he hadn't been able to say that he loved her, she'd had to run out of the house because she was late and he was too busy to say anything more than 'see you later', but of course he hadn't. She'd died and he hadn't been able to say a proper goodbye.

"I know." Her smile was back, but the sadness remained as she gazed at him "I love you too. Remember that, Mac. When you feel alone, scared or as though there's no one in the world who can understand you, remember me. I'm always with you." With that she kissed him lightly, and he savoured the touch before she was gone, melting back into the darkness.

"NO! COME BACK!" He screamed, he couldn't stop the torrent of emotions that were pouring through him. He wanted her back, he wanted to go with her now! He couldn't lose her again. The pain that was hitting him was as fresh as that first day, it was as though it was starting all over again. She was gone and he was alone again.

XXXXXXXXX

Stella shifted in the wheelchair she was being forced to use, the doctors had insisted that she use it if she wanted to move around the hospital. Thankfully they hadn't been able to keep her bedridden, after all she only had a concussion so she should be allowed to wander around and see her friend. However, the doctors hadn't quite seen eye to eye with her, and now she was being wheeled down to Mac's room by Danny who was being overly talkative.

"Honestly, Stell, you gave us a big scare! Along with Flack, I can't believe he got into your room after he'd been shot. He's too macho for his own good, you know. One of these days he'll end up thinking he's Superman or something, but as long as he doesn't become convinced he can fly then we should be okay…"

"Danny," She cut him off, wondering what was wrong for him to be gibbering like this normally he was happy to talk but he didn't ramble. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, Stell, why should anything be wrong?" His defences were up, never a good sign.

"You don't normally talk this much, you tend to be more succinct."

"Oh…sorry." Stella turned around slightly to look up at him and rolled her eyes, she had no idea what was wrong but she had a feeling Lindsay was involved somehow. She wasn't stupid, she'd noticed something going on between the two of them and no doubt this whole situation had pushed their relationship slightly.

"Danny, look, she's been under a lot of stress don't take anything she does or says seriously, okay?" The movement of the wheelchair stopped abruptly, and she could practically hear his mouth opening and shutting as he performed his impression of a goldfish. After a few seconds, however, he started to push her again and not another word was uttered until they reached Mac's room.

As she entered Stella felt her happiness drain away, the sight of Mac lying motionless once again in a hospital bed was almost too much. His skin seemed to have regained a bit more colour but he still looked awful. The heart monitor was beeping regularly and she noted that there were several bags connected to him all pumping him full of drugs, liquid and blood. Finally she tore her gaze away from her immobile friend and looked at Hawkes, he smiled at her before speaking,

"Lindsay's making sure that Flack doesn't get up again, he already tried to walk here but got distracted by some nurses." Stella allowed a half smile to appear on her lips as she listened, that sounded just like Flack. Never mind the fact that he'd been hurt, he just wanted to make sure that his friends were okay and if he couldn't make it there, well there were always some pretty faces to follow.

"At least he's not too badly hurt then, if he's still able to chase the girls." At this they all shared a chuckle, but the sombre mood in the room fell back into place swiftly. She wheeled herself closer to Mac's side, her hand reaching out and clasping his once again, stroking the back of it gently.

"How long 'till he wakes up?" She asked, her eyes not leaving her friend's face.

"Not long now, that's if the doc was right." It was Danny who spoke this time, as he pulled up a chair and sat down next to Sheldon. The three of them remained in silence for a time, none of them wanting to speak in case they missed some sort of sign that Mac was coming round. Stella continued to stroke the back of his hand, praying that soon he'd do something such as squeezing her fingers, just something to let her know he was okay. As she gazed at his face she saw his eyes screw up, as though he were in pain and she moved her hand to his cheek to stroke it, trying to put him at ease. She hated to see him in pain, normally he'd hide it from them all so as not to worry them but on the rare occasions when he couldn't hold it in it was horrible to watch. He seemed to respond to her touch and his features relaxed, she smiled at him before moving her hand back to clutch at his fingers.

For the next half an hour silence reigned in the room, occasionally nurses stepped in to check Mac's vitals but there seemed to be no change in his unconscious state. They'd been hoping that he would wake up swiftly, but it would appear that this was not going to be the case. As if Mac would make it easy for them to know that he was fine.

Finally Sheldon rose from his seat, careful not to disturb Danny who had fallen asleep not too long ago, and asked if Stella would like a drink. She declined and he left no doubt feeling the need to stretch his legs, to get away from the almost palpable tension in the room as the two wakeful occupants waited for their friend to regain consciousness.

"Come on, Mac. Let us know you're okay." She whispered, squeezing his fingers lightly as she spoke. Suddenly there was a slight pressure on her own fingers and she started, her eyes darted from his hand to Mac's face and she saw his eyes flutter open briefly. "Mac?" She said, pulling herself from her wheelchair and ignoring the dizziness that washed over her as she stood. She could tell that he was trying to wake up, his eyes were darting this way and that underneath the closed lids, then finally he opened them properly and blinked confusedly up at her.

"Stella?" His voice was hoarse but he was awake again, she felt her eyes begin to prickle as she smiled down at him.

"Yeah, I'm here." She gripped his hand tighter, squeezing reassuringly. She noticed his eyes flicker over to Danny's sleeping form and she chuckled softly, Danny would not be happy when he learnt that he'd been asleep throughout his boss' first moments awake.

"I came back, Stell. She said you needed me." Stella tilted her head to one side, glancing at her friend curiously as blue eyes turned back to her, trying to communicate something to her but she just couldn't understand what it was. His words didn't make complete sense, but no doubt he was awakening from some sort of dream, drug induced or normal.

"Who said?" She asked, curious despite herself, whilst still trying to stop tears of joy from slipping down her cheeks as she saw Mac awake and observant.

"Cl-Claire." His eyelids were beginning to droop again, sleep was trying to claim him once again but now that he'd woken once she felt that things would be okay. She could let him sleep, after all he needed to rest in order to recover. At the mention of his ex-wife's name Stella felt a pang of sympathy for him, she had obviously appeared in a dream and he believed it had been real.

"Well, she was right. We do need you, but for now you go back to sleep, okay?" He shot her a sleepy smile and was once again fast asleep before he could respond. She stroked his forehead affectionately, allowing the tears to fall and a smile appeared on her lips, almost like the sun bursting through the clouds on a rainy day.

Slowly she sat back in her chair, telling herself that she needed to stay awake in order to tell Sheldon that Mac had woken up but before long she too was dozing in her wheelchair. The knowledge that Mac should be okay making sleep much easier to come by, and lifting the weight that had fallen on her shoulders for the past few days.


	18. Chapter 18

Only one more chapter to go now loves, and yes I've already written it so it'll be up tomorrow when I get a chance to put it on here after lectures. I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to write this story, and hopefully these chapters will be good enough to say 'thank-you' sticking with me.

Thanks again to my beta, but proper thanks will be before the last chapter. Enjoy.

* * *

Mac had forgotten just how much he hated hospitals, he hadn't been in one as a patient since the explosion at the block of apartments just over a year ago but he hadn't been an actual patient for much longer. The memories of his time in combat were still fresh in his mind, therefore hospitals always held the idea of death, mutilation and devastation for him. So many of the people he had known, good people who had deserved a long, happy life, had died in these places. Their time on earth cut short by an operation going wrong or the doctors simply being too late to save them. Some people looked at hospitals as places of life, after all just below him was the maternity ward where mothers were gazing down adoringly at their newborns, already planning their college education. But you only had to go further downstairs to find the mortuary, the bodies lying on cold, grey slabs their human souls evaporated leaving them nothing but empty shells whilst their families and friends mourned their passing.

Life and death were just swings and roundabouts, neither could come without the other and Mac was only too aware that his encounter with Clark could have been his last. He could so easily have been one of those corpses lying, unmoving on the slabs whilst a mortician carried out his duties. It was almost scary to think that life could end so quickly and yet people always took it for granted that they'd be around for a long time.

Slowly Mac rolled onto his side, hissing slightly at the stab of pain from his most recent wound. Thankfully his ribs were healing nicely; according to the doctor as long as he didn't take part in any strenuous activities for the next few weeks then he should be on the road to full recovery. The stitches he'd ripped out were now back in place, helping his knife wound to heal but he had yet another scar to add to his various other ones. The bullet, he was told, had been removed but he knew this scar would stay with him. It had pierced his liver and caused massive internal bleeding, although Don was still maintaining that one man surely couldn't carry enough blood to coat a carpet whilst still bleeding internally.

Stella had been released a couple of days ago, the doctors maintaining that she still needed rest but she seemed to have ignored their advice and was visiting him every day. She seemed to spend more time here than at home, but after her most recent visit lasted several hours he had to practically order her to return home and get some sleep. Reluctantly she had agreed, but he'd sensed that she didn't like leaving him on his own. He wasn't quite sure why this was, it wasn't as if he was going to run away, although judging from the way he felt at the moment he was pretty sure he was going to end up discharging himself. He felt fine, if not completely healthy he at least felt well enough to go back to his own bed. He didn't need doctors leaning over him, prodding him with strange instruments or nurses giving him sycophantic smiles.

It was almost as if he was in jail, not able to leave this repulsive building, being cooped up in this room and reduced to sitting in a wheelchair if he wanted to go somewhere that was considered too far for him to walk. Yes, it hurt to walk still but he wasn't going to let that stop him! He'd recovered from worse than this, hell he'd been brought back from the brink once before and he'd gone on to serve another term in the gulf. He was not going to let a bullet to his liver drive him insane, he was going to be back at work and back to normal as quickly as possible.

His eyes were staring, unseeing at the wall opposite him. He needed to get out of here; he was not going to get any better lying here. Over the past few days he'd had many visits from his team; in fact they were in danger of becoming permanent features of the wall paper. Most of their time here was spent in nervous chatter or else they were telling him about the looming court date, he was to be called upon as a witness along with most of his team but he wasn't worried about that. He was sure that Clark and his son would get what was coming to them but he didn't like the fact that he had been helpless, he had been taken down by a couple of punks.

With a sigh he rolled back over onto his back, his hand reaching down towards his newest scar on his chest. It was still painful to touch but he gritted his teeth as his fingers traced the unfamiliar, jagged line across his stomach. It was just another one to add to the collection.

As he let his hand drop back to the bed he was filled with the desire to be outside, to wander around in Central Park underneath the trees, to take his life into his hands as he tried to cross the street to just be anywhere but in this hospital bed. With that thought in mind he slowly, carefully pushed himself upright and swung his legs over the side of his bed. The pain was slightly more intense now but he knew he could handle it; after all he just wanted to step outside for a bit he wasn't going to go jogging or anything like that just yet.

His bare feet touched the cold floor softly, sending a shiver up his body at the sudden change in temperature. He allowed himself a couple of minutes to get accustomed to using his legs before he pushed himself upright, however, this time the hiss of pain turned into a deep intake of breath. His hand moved to his chest, pressing lightly against it as though this would stop the pain that was building inside him. Despite this Mac was resolved to move, to get out of his small room and do something other than lying in that bed.

Slowly he shuffled towards the door, trying to find the best way to move without sending shockwaves up his body. His eyes were fixed at the floor, his free hand sliding across the wall so he could maintain his balance. He hated being like this, an invalid. It made him feel old, as though his life had passed him by and he was now a pensioner stuck in a home. That had to be one of his worst nightmares, he wasn't someone who could deal with doing nothing, he had to be out there working out a problem or hunting a villain. But deep down he knew that he couldn't do that forever, something would catch up with him sooner or later whether that be old age, an enemy or God forbid something worse.

Cautiously he raised his gaze from the floor to the door, and began to pick up speed as he realised he was almost there. Only a few more steps and then he would be out in the corridor. His elation seemed to block the pain receptors within him and soon he was moving at nearly a normal pace, before he knew it freedom was within his grasp.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" A familiar, female voice called as he placed one foot out of the door. Mac turned his head to see Stella standing only a few feet away from him with her arms crossed and her foot tapping against the floor. At this sight he couldn't help the sheepish expression that crept across his face, for some reason she had the ability to make him feel ten inches tall and right now it was as if he was back in school being reprimanded for handing in work late.

"For a walk?" It really wasn't a good sign if a boss was scared of his employees but Stella Bonesera had that gift that meant she could intimidate the seemingly strongest of people. It also didn't help that he was practically powerless so he wouldn't be much of an opponent if she was to take him back into his room.

Slowly, deliberately Stella stepped forwards unfolding her arms and placing her hands on her hips. Her expression was one he knew all too well, it clearly stated 'I don't believe you for one instant, and if you don't do as I say right now I'll make you regret it'. Mac tried his best to offset this obvious mother hen instinct by shooting her his most innocent smile, however, she didn't seem inclined to fall for it and suddenly she was at his side and practically pushing him back into his room. With a sigh he allowed himself to be manoeuvred back into his bed, knowing that even if he put up a fight it wouldn't amount to much.

Once he was on his bed, sat upright with his pillows placed behind his back Stella took a seat in one of the plastic chair surrounding his bed, watching him with a stern gaze that was gradually changing to one of amusement. Mac tried hard not to turn his own expression into that of a disgruntled child being told he couldn't go out and play with his friends, but it was extremely difficult.

"I would have thought you'd be able to come up with a better escape plan than this, Mac." She said a twinkle in her eye as she shook her head in mock despair at him. Obviously she had expected him to devise his own version of the 'Great escape' complete with digging away at the walls with spoons.

"Well, the simplest plans are always the best, walking out of the front door is what they'd least suspect therefore it could have worked. If you hadn't been there." He shot her a quick glare before turning back to stare straight ahead of him, he wasn't in the mood to swap pleasantries when he knew that all she was going to do was sit there and tell him that he'd be out soon enough. He wanted to be out now, to be back at work and not sat here waiting for a) the doctors to tell him that he could go and b) this court date to loom out of the darkness.

He heard the chair creak slightly as she shifted her weight, no doubt feeling uncomfortable with the lukewarm reception she had received. "What's up?" She asked, her hand reaching out tentatively until it connected with his. At this touch he looked down at her fingers, and his annoyance vanished. It wasn't her fault that this was happening, she had been worried sick about him for so long and he was repaying her like this. How selfish could he be?

"Sorry," He said, placing his other hand over hers and patting it gently. "It's just that I don't like being cooped up in here. I want to be outside."

"I know," Her voice was soothing, and all at once he felt the exertion of his movements hit him. He wanted to go to sleep again, and maybe when he woke up everything would be better. "But it won't be long before you'll be able to go home." His eyes were already beginning to close, but he fought to keep them open for a little longer.

"How's Don?" He managed to ask, as he shifted slightly to try and keep himself awake. Stella seemed to have noticed that he was nearly slipping off the edge of consciousness, and she shot him a small smile as she spoke.

"He's fine, going as stir-crazy as you but he'll be out soon. Now get some rest." He nodded, feeling better now that he knew that Flack was still okay. For some reason he kept on having a dream that Clark broke out of prison and came back for him, finding a way to kill Don in the process. Once he was out of this place he was sure that this would stop, but for the moment he couldn't help but ask if his friend was all right.

At last he gave up the right to keep himself awake and allowed his eyelids to droop before finally closing, before he fell asleep he listened to Stella humming a song, a smile crept across is lips as he began to dream.

XXXXXXXXX

Stella watched as Mac fell into a peaceful slumber, his eyes lightly closed and the corners of his mouth upturned in a slight smile. It was at this moment that she realised how much she'd missed him, all those times he'd been there for her and in a way she'd taken him for granted. Just the small things he'd done for her like bring her a coffee after the fire, making sure he was on the other end of the phone if she needed anything. When he'd first been attacked she had been terrified, not only of losing him but of losing the one thing that kept her tethered to the here and now. He was her rock when times got tough; he was the only person who could break through the walls she had built for herself.

When she'd gotten out of hospital herself she'd made a promise that she would be there for him, making sure he was all right and that he was never out of the loop, after all she knew how much he hated it when the lab continued to run when he wasn't there to oversee it all. But instead of being a good friend to him she'd simply run herself ragged, leaving it up to him to practically order her to go home and sleep. That hadn't done either of them any good and she felt terribly guilty that he felt the need to get out of this place, she could remember how much it had driven her crazy but at least she'd been able to walk around.

Carefully she removed her hand from his and stood quietly, glancing down at his sleeping form and smiling. Finally it was all over, he could sleep without fear and the rest of them weren't petrified that if they left him they'd return to see all the monitors around his bed showing a flat line. Those thoughts had plagued her dreams before he'd regained consciousness, during those few minutes when she had given in to sleep she'd awoken, panting and desperately checking that he was still alive. Thankfully they had subsided, but it was still a relief to find him here looking healthier than he had in weeks and trying to escape.

Slowly she left his room, casting one quick look over her shoulder to make sure she hadn't woken him before he hurried down the corridor to Flack's room. Don was doing extremely well and the doctors were talking about releasing him within the next few days, as long as he did not return to work and rested. Both Stella and Danny had given their assurances that they would make sure the police officer stuck to the doctor's orders, and Don had been clever enough not to argue.

It didn't take her long to find his room; after all it was her normal routine now to see Mac and then pop in to see Flack afterwards. Soon she was knocking on his door and his voice greeted her as she opened it.

"Hey, Stell." He said as he saw her pop her head round the door, she raised an eyebrow as she saw him on his feet and with a bag open on his bed.

"Not you as well!" She moved into the room, shaking her head once more at her friend. Don tilted his head to one side, confused. "Mac just tried to escape." She elaborated as she sat down on the edge of his bed.

"Yeah, well they can't expect us to stay here any longer. I'm going nuts having nothing but these four walls to look at." Stella rolled her eyes, and pulled his bag towards her meaning to take everything out and place it back in the small chest of drawers across the room. However, before she could do anything another figure entered the room.

"Mr Flack, what are you doing?" The detective froze; slowly he turned to look at the doctor who had appeared in the room.

"Um…" Stella couldn't suppress the grin that spread across her face at Flack's expression of utter helplessness, he shot her a quick look that obviously meant he wanted her to come up with an excuse but she just shrugged.

"You're not yet fit enough to be discharged."

"But I'm up and about, I can walk and I really don't need to be here anymore." It was rather amusing watching Don trying to plead with the doctor, who appeared to be used to this sort of behaviour and was not swayed.

"I'll be the judge of that. Now back in bed, now!" Flack grumbled and tried to tell the physician that he was perfectly fine and ready to go back home, but his grovelling did nothing and soon he was sat in bed wearing a similar expression to Mac's and reminding Stella of a petulant child.

"Now, as long as you behave you'll be able to leave soon. But don't tempt me to keep you here longer, okay?" Flack nodded, folding his arms as the doctor turned his back on him and moved towards the door. Before he left he winked at Stella and smiled, she had to admit that he could handle an NYPD detective very well and that might keep him off his feet for a little while longer.

Once the doctor had left Flack pushed the covers back and glared at Stella, who offered him another shrug in return. "Hey, it's not my fault you got told off. You shouldn't be trying to discharge yourself after you got shot! Honestly, what is it with men and trying to act as though being shot and stabbed is nothing!" Don opened his mouth to say something but instead he closed it, noting that nothing he said would make the slightest difference. After a few seconds of silence he spoke and she saw that he no longer looked like he was going to jump out of bed and run for the hills.

"How's Mac doing?" She smiled at the question, the two of them were constantly asking after the other both worrying that something would have happened to them just because they weren't they to protect them.

"He's fine, still tired and sore but once he stops trying to pull a Harry Houdini on us then he'll be fine. He's been asking after you as well." At this Don smiled, a true smile one that spoke volumes. They were all happy to know that Mac was all right and that it looked as if things would start to get back to normal.

"I can't wait for it to be over." His smile disappeared suddenly and she understood, it was hard to think that they could have lost both Mac and Don because of that madman. Once he was safely locked up for attempted murder then they could rest soundly, but for the moment there was still the worry that something else could happen. Danny, Lindsay, Hawkes and Adam were putting all their effort into providing a watertight case but each and every one of them was aware that something could go wrong.

"I know, once Clark's gone then we can get back to normal," She gazed up at him for a while before continuing, "And you have got to stop trying to discharge yourself, you're not gunna help anyone by doing that. So stay here for a little bit longer, okay?" He held her gaze for a while and she wasn't sure whether or not he was going to agree with her, but then finally he nodded giving in and resigning himself to the fact that he'll have to stay in the hospital until the doctors say he can leave.

She let out a sigh of relief, feeling happier knowing that two of the men who she cared about deeply were going to be good little boys for a little while longer.

As the two of them settled into their old ways, laughing and joking with one another it felt as though none of this had ever happened. All the worry and fear had lifted and they were back to being good friends. However, after a good half hour of talking Stella stood up, telling Flack that she had to check on Mac again before she left and hurried to her friend's room. When she reached it she noticed that he was still lying on the bed, his eyes tightly closed and his breathing even. Quietly she crept to the side of his bed and took his hand in hers, squeezing slightly.

"I'm so glad you're all right." As she spoke Mac rolled his head closer to the sound of her voice, his eyes still shut. She smiled softly at him, before she bent down and kissed him lightly on the forehead. He was alive and that was all that mattered now.


	19. Epilogue

Well here it is guys, the last chapter of my story. Again I'd like to apologise for the delays with chapters, my muse deserted me for quite a while when I was writing this but thankfully it's back now and I've managed to finish it. Thank-you to all of you who have stayed with this story and reviewed, you've brightened my days when I read what you all think. Without you guys this story would have died long ago!

A big thank-you must go to my beta lollylovesangua, because she has been amazing! She's read every chapter and picked up on my terrible spelling and grammar xD and without her there to annoy me about chapters, and to read through all this then I wouldn't have posted it.

So yes, those are my thank-yous for this story and I'm grateful to everyone who has read, reviewed and helped with this story. Please do let me know what you think of this last chapter and thanks again for being great readers!

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After another week or so Mac was finally released from hospital and to say that he hurried out of that place would be an understatement. As soon as the doctor told him he could go home the next day he packed his bags as quickly as possible, and was ready to leave by eight o'clock the next morning. As he reached the reception area he found both Stella and Don sat in two of those horribly, uncomfortable plastic chairs waiting for him. A small smile appeared on his lips as he saw them and the moment they spotted him up and about they stood and hurried forwards. Stella was the first to reach him and flung her arms around his neck, obviously happy that he was still here right in front of her.

Once she let go it was Flack's turn to greet him, but Mac wasn't prepared for the younger male to copy his female companion and hug him. After a few seconds of shock he returned the hug, and as they moved apart Don looked slightly embarrassed. Mac knew he probably hadn't meant to do that but no doubt seeing him healthy and ready to go home was too much. He was well aware that the moment he'd seen Don walk into his room under his own steam he'd been grinning from ear to ear. This had taken a hell of a lot out of them all, and it was about time that it was all over.

"We're packed just outside." Don moved off, taking his bag out of his hands and carrying it off through the automatic doors and out into the front car park. Stella stayed with him, walking at a comfortable, steady pace and smiling. As they left the hospital Mac found it strange to believe that this had been his 'home' for at least the last month and finally he was able to leave. He relished in the concrete beneath his feet and the wind in his hair, he couldn't wait to go jogging through the city once more. However, at that thought he felt a weight drop in his stomach, there was a family out there whose son or brother had been killed because of him. If he hadn't been jogging that night then that kid might not be dead now, he might be at home with his family and friends enjoying his life.

"Mac?" Stella's voice cut through the dark thoughts in his mind, and he realised that they'd reached the car. He glanced towards her and saw that her eyes were full of concern; he shot her a quick smile hoping that this would dispel any worries she had about him before he pulled open the car door and sat in the back seat. She'd done enough worrying about him for the time being; now all he wanted to do was get home.

Once they were all seated Don turned the car around and headed out onto the road, soon they were moving through the relatively sparse traffic towards his apartment. Mac gazed out of the window as they moved, taking in all the buildings and people walking along the streets. Due to the amount of people who lived in this one city crime shouldn't be a surprise and yet when it happened to you…it was all the more real. He dealt with murders, thefts, beatings every day and yet it had all taken a whole new look this time. He knew he'd made enemies over the years but he wasn't sure if he could cope with the knowledge that his friends would get hurt as well. His decisions affected them and if something happened to any of them, he wasn't sure what he'd do.

Before he'd even had time to think through all the things that had happened recently they were pulling up in front of his apartment block, he opened the car door and stared up at the windows of his home. It was going to be difficult going back to where all this violence had started, but he knew that he had to conquer his demons now otherwise they would haunt him for eternity.

As a group they moved up the steps and into the building, they got into the lift and were soon on their way to his floor. There was silence for a while; before both Stella and Don began to make nervous small talk no doubt they were trying to take his mind off the fact this whole affair. He was well aware that attacks that happened in your own home were the worst, because that was where you felt safest and that security was destroyed but he'd been through worse. He wasn't about to let something like this drive him from his home, he was strong and he'd get through this.

Finally the lift pinged and the doors slid open to reveal the familiar corridor to his apartment, he got out and headed towards number 69 noting that police tape had recently been removed as bits of yellow still remained around the doorframe. He stared at the door for a few seconds before he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys, they bashed together in his hand as he tried to find his the right one in amongst his car keys and other sets. Once he'd located it he slid it into the lock and turned, the door clicked and he pushed it open to reveal his apartment looking tidier than it had in a while. Obviously the clear-up squad had been hard at work to make his place look presentable once again.

The second he crossed the threshold he was greeted with images of the attack, striking out at his attackers and being forced to the floor. A knife being thrust into him before the sound of a gunshot threatened to tear his world to pieces. He remembered seeing Claire's picture on the mantelpiece and praying that she'd give him strength to fight off these attackers. She hadn't done that, but she had helped him realise that he was needed here.

Tearing himself from the past he glanced at the counter where a small pile of post had been placed, he needed something mundane to do, something to take his mind off it.

"Hey, Mac, do you want me to make a cup of coffee?" Stella's voice sounded from behind him and he nodded absentmindedly, not bothering to point to the kettle as she'd been here often enough to know his apartment off by heart. He heard her asking Flack if he wanted anything, before she moved off to the kitchen and began to boil the water.

Casually he flicked through the letters, noting that most of them were bills that he'd need to pay relatively quickly, however, one caught his attention. He picked it out of the pile, placed the rest down, and stared at it. The handwriting was small, his address was nearly impossible to read and he felt his curiosity peak. Carefully he opened it and pulled out the piece of paper within, as he began to read he felt his heart stop.

_Detective Taylor,_

_Pity I didn't manage to finish the job this time, but don't think you've won just yet. You're team are fun to play with, maybe I'll try for that Stella soon after all she was a good looking little thing._

_Happy homecoming,_

_I'll be seeing you soon._

_Do I really need to sign this?_

The letter almost fell from his hands but he managed to save it before it hit the floor, thankfully neither Flack nor Stella had noticed. He shoved the letter in his pocket, not wanting them to notice anything out of the ordinary. He'd deal with this his own way, and he wasn't going to allow them to be hurt. Not this time.

He continued to open his mail, trying to appear normal until Stella approached with a steaming cup of coffee. He took it with a forced smile, taking a sip and trying to get the tension to ease out of his body. Suddenly Flack appeared on his other side and the three of them stood with their cups staring at one another, before the younger detective spoke,

"To all this being over and done with next week." Flack raised his cup into the middle of the group, and Stella soon placed hers next to it. Mac hesitated for a second before he too joined in the toast, but he knew this was far from being over. He wouldn't let them get involved this time, they had to remain separate because he couldn't cope if anything happened to one of them, they were too important. It wasn't finished just yet.


End file.
